The Whirlwind, Multiversal Adventures of the Future Mrs Hatter
by Willofthewisp
Summary: Our world is not the only one. There are infinite more. They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands each just as real as the last. These are the facts, the conditions under which portal jumpers must operate. Finding someone special in all these worlds seemed impossible, but the facts are about to change. j/oc.
1. Alice in Lilliput

A bag of gold, hat hung up on the rack—who could ask for anything more, really, Jefferson thought. His whistling echoed through his cottage, soon to be an estate at the rate he was going, trade after trade, deal upon deal. No more using nails on a wall for a wardrobe, no more nasty looks of disapproval from most of his clients, no more cold baths...but at the moment he would be good with no more strangers entering his house. His whistling stopped. A few wet footprints on the wooden floorboards led towards the kitchen and then vanished, as if someone wiped the floor and forgot a few places. Pulling a knife out of his coat pocket, he clung to his bag with the other hand and crept towards the back of the house.

"Oh! Oh, you're back already. The tea still has to warm up!" A small, slender young woman fussed over his stove, thick sandy waves of hair down to her shoulders. "Alice Liddell." She glanced down at the knife as she extended her hand and stared back up at him with an incredulous face.

"Jefferson Hatter...and you're in my house..."

"Yes, I know," she said, lips pressed in a sheepish expression. "And I do know your name. It's why I'm here. You're a portal jumper."

"I'll tell you now I've only had a crazy girl who found that extra appealing come in once and it didn't go very well." He didn't know where to stand, remembering incoherent babbling of discovering new worlds together.

"Well, maybe today will be different. I'm here to propose...oh, that's the tea." The hissing of the kettle prompted a silenced curse word from her little mouth. Jefferson placed the knife into a drawer without a sound. Still within arm's reach. He edged around the table when she turned back towards him, cups in hand.

"I'm here to propose a partnership."

"A partnership?"

"It's when two people—"

"I know what it is." He gritted his teeth. "It requires both parties have some kind of skill or attribute to offer the other. And yours would be?"

"Simple. My presence. May I sit?"

Oh, sure, why the hell not, unpack your things and put your name above the door while you're at it, he thought, gesturing at the empty seat across from him. He eyed the drawer.

"I've been following your trade for some time now and I've noticed a few peculiarities," she said. "For instance, you've turned down every job where someone asked you to bring someone here."

"I'm not a ferrying service."

"Are you not because your hat requires the same amount of people come out as go in?"

"All right, I'm prepared to let you walk out that door freely, or you can be thrown out. I don't like spies." He rose.

"It wasn't...it was just career-related," she said, forehead knitted. "I, I would never invade your actual privacy. I was just doing my research. Please, sit down. Hear me out. I think you'll be interested in what I have to offer you."

"Two minutes," he growled, sitting.

"What if you had someone to go in with? Hmm? Now, you couldn't do the jobs where someone would want the other person to stay, but if a visitor were ever needed, someone required to come to our world, for example. We would jump in together, I'd wait about in their world, and then when you dropped them off, we would return together. That's the gist of it."

"You don't need to go on, rest assured. What exactly do you plan on doing in some world you've never been to before?"

"Shop?" she said coyly after a beat, so suddenly he almost laughed.

"I don't think you understand the dangers that surround portal jumping." He puffed out his chest and exhaled, exaggerating the body language of a frustrated teacher. "I'm for hire. I've dealt with lords and ladies, but also thieves, pirates, witches, wizards, and worse. Much worse. Ever climbed up a beanstalk and been surrounded by giants that could squash you like a bug? Ever made a trip to the Dark Castle and had to choose your every word carefully?"

"Ever been able to bring someone from another world to ours and then be able to take them back?" she asked.

"It's a charming notion, Miss..."

"Liddell." He remembered, but waved dismissive fingers at her.

"Liddell, but as you can see from my latest bounty, I'm doing rather well for myself and therefore cannot possibly be losing out on enough to warrant hiring a partner with no jumping experience..."

"Nine percent."

"Excuse me?" He bugged his eyes to show extra irritation.

"You turned down nine percent of your business transactions these last six months, which involved someone physically going to another world one way or another." She frowned, then smiled, then frowned again. "I'm not here to make you feel stupid, and I'm sure I'm coming across as a bit forward."

"A bit." At last the flustered look of self-consciousness came over her, to which he smiled.

"Are you trying to embarrass me?" she asked.

"Not at all. You're already an embarrassment." Nine percent? Seriously? The bag next to him looked so much smaller now...no, no, Jefferson, that's not common sense talking. That's greed, and it's not worth her price. She sat there, mouth agape.

"Well, I, I'll just stop wasting your time then. I had thought you might be at least a little interested in making a bigger profit, and I do realize I have no experience. That's why it was just going to be seventy-thirty..."

Seventy-thirty? For shopping around while he did all the work, he considered saying, but another thought took over his mind as she stood up and started heading out the door.

"Why would you trust me to always come back for you?"

She turned, an eyebrow raised at the question. He wasn't as good at reading eyes as some, but something in her warm, caramel ones flinched, seeing the question as utterly absurd.

"Partners have to trust each other." With a shrug, she turned again to leave, and Jefferson couldn't believe he was standing, moving, blocking her from her way out.

"Maybe a trial period is in order, three weeks, perhaps." It felt extra bullying, towering over her the way he did. The top of her head was at his collarbone. "And I do a lot of jobs, sort of a get-rich-quick method. It might be a little more than you can handle."

"I literally have nothing better to do, Mr. Hatter," she said.

"Not every world is fun, you know." He locked out his arm bracing the wall with his hand, allowing him to lean his head down to where they could be face-to-face. "You'd have to have a morbid curiosity to traverse some of them."

"Fortunately for us then, my curiosity knows no bounds."

* * *

He'd spun the hat a few times, training her, he guessed, showing her which doors led where. Wide-eyed and eager, she nevertheless listened well, and it was sort of fun to show off his knowledge to someone. Few of his clients cared about the how, solely interested in the what. He'd stopped to lace his boot that had come undone only to look up and find her tucking a hair back into place using the Wonderland's looking glass. She said little when he spoke, asked few questions, but always recited everything afterwards, verbatim at times.

Lilliput was the first on his schedule. He'd decided she would go with him on a few regular runs before they would advertise he could traffic in people. Arriving on the shore, he showed her how to avoid crushing anything...or anyone, all but duck-walking sideways to reach the capital city's main street.

"What exactly are we after?" she puffed, trying to smile at the few fearless passers-by still outside.

"A pea."

"A pea?"

"Ones in our world aren't small enough for what our client needs," he grunted, swerving past a half dozen barrels that could fit in the palm of his hand. At least this time the people of Mildendo weren't hurling pint-sized spears at him. He couldn't glance back at Alice to see her reaction, live vicariously through a first-timer's expressions, but on the outskirts of town already, they were approaching farm territory. Dollhouse buildings gave way to stretches of green. Removing a leafy pea plant by the roots, he sifted through it until he found a bright pod ready for shelling.

"What could a person want with a pea so small?" Alice marveled, positioning herself into a plank to brush the pods still attached to the ground.

"From what I've heard, it's to ensure her son won't marry a fraud princess."

"Ah, that old reason," she said, the sarcasm palpable. Sticking the plant into his satchel, Jefferson motioned for them to backtrack to the shore.

"Unless you feel like shopping," he said, being sure his words dripped with mocking concern. "Although I can't rightly say they'll have anything your size."

* * *

"How do you know the worlds as well as you do? Experience?" Alice asked once he'd been paid.

"Experience, surveying it, research." An idea struck him.

"Surveying? You mean maps? Could you show me how to do that?"

She'd beaten him to it, he thought, and he didn't like being robbed of his opportunity to mentor.

"I'll set you up tomorrow with everything you'll need for it. Cartography's an art, you know." That was it. He cocked his head back and smirked. Thought she could get paid for just standing around waiting for him and not having to do any work, eh? A brush with the delicate, fine attention to detail required for a map and she'd quit, be out of his side, for she was a thorn, and then seventy-thirty could revert back to good old one hundred percent like nothing had ever happened.

* * *

**A/N: Hello! I do not own OUAT, but I do hope you enjoy the fic. Onward!**


	2. Alice in Narnia

"I was too excited to sleep much last night, so I went to the baron's estate, the library there is opened to the public, and looked up everything I could about cartography. Look at this one. Look at the calligraphy there, and the humps of the sea monster along there. It's like those tiny etchings you see in museums compared to the wall-length landscapes, or something out of Lilliput, what with all the detail put into it. The texture on the monster's scales there. It's so beautiful. To think only a few generations ago this was unquestioned fact of what our world looked like." Alice stopped to sigh and Jefferson's teeth could finally release the insides of his cheeks. Apparently, cartography wouldn't be as undesirable a skill to pick up as he had hoped. She still had yet to do it, he reminded himself, but zeal can go such a long way when one embarks on a challenge. Nineteen days left of her trial period, too. Nineteen too many.

"Well, all of this will have to wait." He clapped his hands together. "We get to ferry a visitor."

"Already? Who?" Her face lit up. Jefferson fought to match it.

"A captivating little creature a rather odd man here wants to exploit—a faun." He threw a coat on, the longest one, and tossed his smallest one to her. "Brace yourself this time. Narnia can be pretty cold."

* * *

Narnia was indeed cold, always winter and never Christmas, whatever that was. That was what the locals...beavers, mice, rabbits, and the like...always mumbled, but other than the gorgeous black lamppost, so striking against the snow-covered spruces and the pale purple winter sky, this land didn't interest him.

Alice, however, gasped at the woodland, gazed skyward to let the snowflakes land on her eyelashes, and pulled the coat up higher over her neck. He instructed her to be on the lookout for tracks, like a deer's, only a tad smaller. If one happened to be about, it would be hard to miss, a splash of color amid the blinding white.

The darkest, worst part of him toyed with the idea of spinning the hat and leaving her since she'd seemed to find something about this wasteland beautiful. But the unwavering faith she'd chosen to place in him nagged his conscience. She rented an upstairs room of a thatcher in the village nearest to his cottage, rickety stairs on the outside of the house. He'd cringed the entire time she climbed them after he'd escorted her back, just knowing one of the steps would give way and down she'd drop.

"Here! Mr. Hatter!" He lowered a frozen branch in front of him to find her figure waving over at him. Quickening his pace, he approached her and the neat markings of faun tracks.

"What happens now?" she asked.

"We follow them, quietly. Fauns scare easily. The best thing would be to see if these lead to a cave or something it uses for a house." He pulled out an enormous velvet bag. "We'll wait until it's asleep, bag it, and you can hide out there until I get back."

Nodding, she followed him, tiptoeing along with her eyes cast down at the tracks. Now's the time to stuff that conscience away somewhere, he thought. Glancing back at Alice once, he shook his head. There was nothing to suggest she could do the same. In fact, it was more than likely she would feel compelled to pity the creature and keep remarking how cute it was and how she didn't have the heart to put him in a bag. His insides raged as if it had already happened. While he wasn't sure he could call Alice mild-mannered, she was most definitely gentle...perchance gentle enough to be revolted by the darker aspects of the job?

"What's funny?" she asked.

"Oh! Fauns. Funny things." Almost giddy now, his pace quickened to the end of the tracks. They stopped at a small arched door built into a small hill, surrounded by stones. Cozy, very cozy. His hand hovering over the knob, he turned to her.

"Have you ever seen a faun before?"

"Lots of times in the forest."

"No, pronounced the same, spelled differently. This is half-man, half-goat, often wide-eyed, pipe-playing, guidance-giving free spirits, about yay tall..." He held up his hand. "Sure you can do this?"

She nodded quickly, holding her breath and turned the knob.

"No, wait!"

He dodged out of sight just as the door creaked open to reveal a moppy-haired male faun with fuzzy chin hair looking up at Alice, both with the same stunned face.

"Can, can I help you?" he stammered, bringing his hands up to his bare chest.

"Yes, or, er, at least I hope so," Alice said. Jefferson's hand flew up and smacked his forehead. He couldn't watch. He could. He couldn't, could...like seeing a carriage accident.

"I'm lost," she continued.

"Might I ask just how you came to be here in the first place? You're not, not a Daughter of Eve, are you?" the faun asked, eyebrows arched up in hope.

"I don't think so. Not sure what that is. See, there was a road...that way." She pointed to a general direction. Not bad, considering, Jefferson thought. "And a few foxes spooked my horse. I was thrown, horse ran off, and here I stand at your door hoping you can be of some assistance."

"Pardon me." The faun hopped out onto his welcome mat with the meekness of an animal weighing the consequences of taking a few pieces of food from a human's hand. "There is no main road, miss, and you're not dressed for riding. No snow on you. Your story must be impossible."

"Impossible?" she giggled. "Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast! Truth is stranger than fiction, don't you agree?"

"Well..."

"I hadn't planned on riding. Chester, that's my horse, kept neighing and causing such a commotion that finally my grandfather said that if I didn't take him out for a little while, he'd put him down. I figured the cold was worth it for keeping him alive. Now I'm all turned around, so I'm sure I pointed the wrong way now that I think about it. Could you help me get to the nearest road? I can take it from there, I'm sure. My, this place is so beautiful." She took a few steps backward, snowflakes speckled in her loose hair, on her shoulders. She really wasn't so bad at this, he thought, smiling in spite of himself. Has that something that makes people want to take care of her, useful if one is aware of it.

The faun took a few more cautious steps.

"You know, miss, I see your point. I've seen a few sleighs go up and down a road just ahead. I can take you there."

This was it. He could leap out once the faun's back was to him, bag him, and get him back to that farmer with nothing better to do than settle a bet with another farmer, the wager being if fauns existed in the Enchanted Forest or not. A true battle of wits that would be settled by cheating. One, two...no. No, no, no. They were going back the same way. He'd see the extra...

"Did you have some company before, miss?" Too late.

"What?" she asked, stopping.

"These footprints here." He tapped one of the indentations with his hoof.

"Those? Well..."

No explanation would do. Jefferson pounced on the petite creature, bag open, taking him down to the ground. They rolled over each other again and again. Snow hitting unexpected bits of skin felt like a knife slicing into him. The faun crawled on top of him now, in the bag, digging his human nails into Jefferson's chest.

Alice flung herself on top of the bag, wiggling down with it until she face-planted into the snow, allowing him to stand and tie off the bag. The faun kicked and punched, but would only succeed in tiring himself out after a few minutes.

"What the hell?" Jefferson bellowed.

"I'm sorry," she said to the ground. "I forgot about the tracks."

"You almost cost me my delivery!"

"We have him now, so..."

"So no harm done? Is that what you think? Time is money! Making that kind of a mistake could have cost us both our lives!" She flinched at his voice, eyes still on the snow, but hardening.

"Then proceed with your delivery. I'll be in his hut."

"You try the same trick on a chimera and see where that gets you!" Fuming, he hoisted the bag over his shoulder, ignored the sudden strain on his back, and sent his hat spinning.

* * *

Alice sat curled up in an armchair reading when he burst through the door. Not even ready to go...damn her.

"Hurry up! He weighs a ton!"

"Here, I can start the hat while you release him." She held out her hands.

"No, thank you, Miss Liddell, for I am sure we would be gods-know-where with you operating it." He should have let her, though. That would have simplified things. "Go outside and wait for me."

Backing up to the door after she exited, he held the strings of the bag as he held the door ajar with his foot. With one motion, he loosened the strings and threw himself back outside where he and Alice ran until they reached an opened space.

* * *

"You know you don't get your cut for this job, right?" he asked her in the space between worlds, multiple doorways to worlds once thought feasible only in the imagination encircling them.

"What?"

"You botched the job. Do you know how long it's going to take to find another section of Narnia I can jump to so I'm not immediately attacked by some faun?"

"I think a beginner at anything is entitled to a minor mistake or two."

"So I should pay you to make mistakes?"

"Eighty-twenty?"

"Absolutely not."

"Mr. Hatter, we had an agreement," she cried, gritting her teeth. So desperate to control her temper. He should have laughed in her face. "It's not only unfair, but impractical to expect someone who has never been to a world before to completely have her bearings."

"You make another mistake, and your trial period is over." He loomed over her, but she met his eyes, showing only indignation, not fear.

"I don't think—"

"Then you shouldn't talk," he interrupted, and opened the door back into their world.

* * *

**A/N: The "six impossible things before breakfast" line is directly from _Alice in Wonderland _as the "don't think/don't talk" exchange really is a bit of Alice and the Mad Hatter's dialogue. Of course I don't own _The Chronicles of Narnia_, and unlike Jefferson, I actually like it. I'm sure given the nature of the narrative you'll be able to tell which worlds I'm more familiar with. I'll also be giving out clues as to where they will be going next during the course of Alice's trial period, always in quote format. Feel free to guess. This next place is an island, described as "the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real."**


	3. Alice in Neverland

Her maps possessed the markings of a novice, but also great potential, and even the errors were miniscule—a line not so straight, a few contours mixed up. She would sit for hours in focused silence, to the point where Jefferson had to remember she was there. Finishing breakfast, he leaned his head against the back of his chair and stared at her profile over at his desk. Today's journey was for two purposes, and he'd been debating with himself whether or not she'd be able to handle it.

She'd said nothing about herself, where she'd come from, the sudden interest in the multiple worlds. His first impression had been that she'd merely wanted that foot in the door necessary to being able to jump, and while it would have still been flattering to have been chosen as her springboard, that didn't seem the case. She'd asked no questions about how to do it, no insisting on practicing with the hat. No, job-wise, she seemed plenty satisfied with the ways things were. Maps, on the other hand...insatiable.

"Is it time to go yet?" She looked up, prompting him to clear the table.

"Soon. We'll be in Neverland for most of the day. You more than I, of course."

"So we'll come back looking younger," she said with a wry smile, so wry he couldn't even scold her for being vain. That was too much like the pot calling the kettle black anyway.

"I have to bring a Lost Boy here, wants to experience a day as a grown-up. When I bring him back, I have to pick up some fairy dust."

"Fairy dust exists in other realms?" she asked, stacking her maps into a pile.

"Much more of it in Neverland than here. Unless you say, 'I don't believe in fairies.'" He frowned at her bewildered eyes. "That means don't say, 'I don't believe in fairies' while we're there."  
"But I do believe in fairies," she said.

"Never mind." Some things were only funny if you'd been to the world in question, he remembered. She'd laugh next time. Next time, what was he saying? Two jobs meant twice the probability she'd screw something up again, and then he'd really have to fire her, maybe even give her bottom a little kick out the door for good measure if she was insolent about it.

* * *

Neverland's climate attached itself to its most mysterious inhabitant, a young boy with all his first teeth still. When he was away, the island appeared dormant, the wind still, insects silent, clouds huddling together. But when the boy flew back, really flew, the place wakened into life. It was a jungle and yet a forest, a beach and yet mountains in the background. Balls of light that up close were none other than fairies fluttered around like rainbow fireflies. Alice took in everything she could, admiring the feathers, the leaves. For a moment, he envied her seeing it for the first time.

At last they heard running, and a boy, barefoot and wearing animal skins, smiled up at them before looking over his shoulder.

"Hurry. Peter's away. He'd thin out the herd starting with me for this."

"Oh gods," Alice breathed. "What's he talking about?"

"Right this way, my lad." Jefferson bowed and removed his hat.

* * *

Right by the mermaid lagoon. He saw her stooped over by the sand, probably looking for shells.

"Well?"

"I found some fairy dust earlier." She held up a small pouch. "You were right. It's everywhere around here. Did the boy..."

"Don't worry. He seems more taken with Neverland than before." Letting his eyes rolling speak for him, he edged back towards the forest. About to stop at the nearest clearing to go home, the ground seemed to give way. Falling back into something, he turned over to find both of them caught in a net and being hoisted up to the tree limbs.

A dozen bronze-skinned men, tattooed and dressed in skins, emerged from the foliage, bows and arrows at the ready. Great, just great. He and Alice scrambled as best they could to face them, holding onto the scratchy braided ropes. An older man with more feathers, more of his face obscured in cryptic paint approached them. Arms folded, hawk-like nose, high protruding cheekbones—a vision of nobility. So doom then, Jefferson thought.

He spoke in a foreign tongue and then the net lowered.

"You steal fairy dust."

"I'll handle this," he hissed at Alice before summoning up his most disarming grin. "Evening! A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir, but we have no such item on our persons and if you would just let us go about our business, we'll leave your land untouched and precisely how it was before."

The chief turned and uttered a few words to his nearest warrior.

"This looks promising," he said to himself. They'd be back with merely a slap on the wrist and then everything would be fine.

The warrior pointed his arrow and fired right into Jefferson's shoulder blade. Wincing at the searing pain did little, grunts did little, and so Jefferson Hatter unleashed an agonizing yelp.

"Please! What do you want?" Alice maneuvered past him until she was kneeling over his legs.

"You give back fairy dust!" the chief thundered.

"And you'll let us go?" He nodded. Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, she pulled out a small sack and dangled it outside the net. "Release us first. And, and promise you won't hurt anyone!"

The net crashed to the ground and Jefferson had the misfortune of landing on his back, the hard ground and his wound scraping against each other. It took several seconds for him to stagger to his feet. One of the warriors snatched the sack from Alice and presented it to the chief.

"Go," was the only word addressed to them.

Holding out his hand in gratitude, Jefferson hobbled back towards the forest, cringing and trying to determine if removing his coat would lessen the pain at all. He could hear the voices of the tribesmen behind them, growing louder, growing more belligerent. He and Alice turned at the same time to witness a warrior, incensed given his foot stomping and nostril-flaring, argue with the chief, bow and arrow still at the ready. The tip of the arrow pointed in their direction now and then. The chief remained adamant about whatever topic they disagreed on, although given his recent streak of luck, he had a feeling they were the topic.

"Let's speed things up, shall we?" Alice whispered to him, a twinge of fear in her tone. Before he could concur, the warrior shot another arrow, this one hitting Alice right in the calf. Whooping and sticks breaking under the rush of excited feet followed.

"Oh, shit," Jefferson gasped, his shoulder still throbbing. With the arrow still lodged in her leg, it was painful watching her try to stand, her limp too much. He took her hand to help pull her, but she went down again, and he would be, too, as the arrow weakened him with each passing minute.

"Here," he said to no one in particular, throwing his hat to the ground, a few arrows narrowly missing it, and gathering her up. They leaped into the hat, fell into it, actually, leaving the encroaching warriors following a dead-end path.

* * *

They didn't stop until they were in Jefferson's cottage. Without a word, he gathered cloths and towels while she limped to the water basin like a dying animal. A moment of understanding had seemed to come over them, to fix themselves, to survive. The water heated on the stove, the coat and the vest and the shirt came off, wounds widened with kitchen knives to remove the arrowheads. Propping himself up on the table, he sensed Alice coming up behind him with the compress.

The heat of the cloth on his shoulder blade soothed as instantly as it cleaned. It allowed him a moment of clarity, so he took her leg and brought it up across his lap, the skirt hitched up. Taking a cloth, he held it over where the arrow struck her. She hissed behind him, then gave out a muffled moan, and kept quiet, concentrating on his injury.

Fairy dust gone, he thought, the pain finally ebbing. A job botched, for the first time ever. Fire her now, he decided. It wouldn't be so hard with your back to her.

"Alice," he said for the first time, settling on a casual, personal tone, which seemed appropriate since he was all but stroking her leg pressed against his waist. "This isn't working out."

"What?" Her voice was closer than he'd thought. Blinking, he straightened, cursing himself for not realizing he'd been leaning on her.

"It's just not working out, and now you're hurt, and..."

"But we said three weeks!" Gods, don't cry. He'd never be able to turn around and make sure she left if she cried. Surely she had to see it made sense this way. You should really let go of her leg now, he scolded himself.

"I know, I know, but, look, this was what I was talking about. We could have died, and I'm sure I've lost a client in the process. Word will get out I can't deliver, and then there would be nothing to divvy up anyway, so it's just for the best if we stop now."

"But, but, I have the fairy dust!" He craned his neck to see her frantic arms fumbling around in her cleavage, producing a tiny sack identical to the one she'd handed the chief. Holding his breath, he took it from her and peered inside to find glittery golden dust.

"Why, Alice, I had no idea you were clever."

She grinned at him.

"Does that mean the trial period is still on?"

"It absolutely does."

"You're not angry? Because you really have nothing to be angry about."

"Aside from the agony of being shot with an arrow, I'm elated. What did you give the chief?"

"Sand. From the lagoon."

He laughed, his tired head falling down into his hands. Fairy dust happened to be one of the most sought-after commodities in this line of work. The payoff would be beyond her imagination, or at least it would have been had their lives themselves not been part of the reward. Even a small pouch like this meant a great sum to reap.

Alice shuffled towards the door, bringing him back to the present.

"Do you need to be walked back?"

"No, thank you. I'm sure I can manage." She winced again and cupped her calf before once again trying to open the door.

"Just stay here tonight. It's already dark and it'll take you forever to get back to the village."

"And wear the same clothes tomorrow?" she gasped, scandalized. Never mind the single woman sleeping over at a single man's house, oh no.

"That's a good point, actually. We'll see how we're doing and then you can change at your place. I was going to come get you pretty close to daybreak anyway."

"Why?"

"We have a wedding to crash." The delight on her face fell away to a moment of conscience.

"We aren't going to, to ruin it, are we?"

"No, not all, just pick up our dish at the reception," he said, laying his head down on the table. "More about that tomorrow. Bed's right there."

"Oh, you should be the one to take it, with your shoulder."

For a moment, he considered the possibility of sharing it, but it was such a small bed, barely enough room for him. And his eyelids felt so heavy here on the table already. With a tired, mock-exasperated sound of dismissal, she laid down on it and burrowed under the covers.

"You're sure?" she asked one more time.

"Yes, damn it, take it."

"Why, Jefferson, I had no idea you were a gentleman," she said with the same haughty air he'd used before.

"Don't tell anyone."

"Jefferson? Why did you become a portal jumper?"

"Adventure and money." And thanks to her, he was most definitely not doing without either.

"Then what?" she asked. "What do you plan to do after that?"

"No idea," he sighed, the world already fading to black.

"If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there," she yawned.

* * *

**A/N: Totally understand the lack of political correctness with Neverland's "Indians," but I wanted to keep in the spirit of the book. I tried to downplay it, none of the "What Makes the Red Man Red" crap. I really, really wanted to include some flying in the Neverland chapter but the spirit just didn't move me that way. The last line is a Lewis Carroll quote.**

**Hint for the next location: this place is technically supposed to be on our Earth. The author repeatedly said it was an unwritten time in our history, about six thousand years before he/she wrote the source material. The author described the location as a "secondary or sub-creational reality" or "Secondary Belief."**


	4. Alice in Middle Earth

Jefferson woke with a slight crick in his neck, but close to no pain in his shoulder blade. Crossing his arm over, he ran his fingers over the spot. He rolled his shoulder a few times, sore, but more than functional, and after yesterday, that was a vast improvement. Long strands of blonde over in his bed caught him off-guard until he remembered. A few rays of dawn seeped in through the windows, creating tiny square sun spots on the cottage floor.

"How's the leg?" he asked Alice after he noticed her stretching.

"Still tender, but much better."

They ate in silence, she studied her maps, and then they journeyed to her rented room so she could change. He'd never been up to her room before, a hard-wood-floored box with a bed and a basin, two little windows, and colorful sketches of flowers and butterflies sprawled all over the place. A dress hung on a nail here and there, not as many as he'd imagined she had, though. She changed behind a screen, a naked arm raking in a pair of shoes from underneath the bed. In a matter of minutes, she was dressed in a simple emerald dress with her hair braided up into a loose bun.

"Is that what you're wearing?" she asked when she stepped out from behind the screen.

"Because what, we're supposed to match or something?"

"Well, you said we were crashing the wedding. If we don't look our best, aren't we giving ourselves away?"

Not sure if he was more offended at not looking his best or that she seemed completely oblivious to the fact she'd just insulted him, he leaned back against the door and folded his arms.

"And how do you know this isn't my best?"

"I don't. But you wore most of that yesterday. I think you'd be wearing the shirt too if it didn't have blood all over it."

"So you're going to be embarrassed to be seen with me at a wedding where we don't know anyone in a world we're not even from? How vain."

"And how manic of you to say so, Mr. Hatter," she snapped. "We should go ahead and go so we're not late."

"Such good advice. It's a shame you seldom follow it yourself."

"Manic and smug. It's a wonder you made time to size me up at all," she said.

"I'm just trying to figure out what sort of dark creature dreamed you up."

"You'd have to be half mad to dream me up anyway," she muttered. Considering it self-deprecation, Jefferson spun the hat with extra panache and they jumped into it without looking at the other.

* * *

The spring smells of clover and wisteria and lavender clung to the air, along with the heady aroma of pies setting out, waiting for the reception. Jefferson and Alice sat in the back of a crowded outdoor wedding ceremony with the clearest of skies hanging over them. He'd been to several parts of Middle Earth but found the Shire possessed the most natural beauty, and it appeared Alice had drawn the same conclusion, looking more at the lush mounds of grass, fat sunflowers, and thick winding apple trees than at the stout, leather-soled couple at the altar.

She did whirl her head around for the annunciation and the first kiss between a husband and wife and, Jefferson did a double take, tears welled in her eyes. Clapping along with the rest of the guests, her head angled in satisfaction and happiness. And she'd called him manic, he thought, sulking.

The reception was also outdoors with round wooden tables and fireworks. The Hobbits had strung lanterns around the field, their gold hue melding with the pink sunset. If crashing weddings was even taboo in their culture, no one there minded two humans attending the festivities. Alice actually conversed with a few of them, asking questions about the land and the recipe of the pork pie set before them. An innkeeper with more money than he knew what to do with, in Jefferson's opinion, hired him to bring back the most scrumptious pork pie ever made in order to copy the recipe. This one, seasoned with nutmeg, mace, and raisins, could not be beat. Tempted as he was to take a bite, he asked the nearest server to place it in a container for him to take on the road. Flutes and fiddles played in the background as several Hobbits stood to dance, clapping and moving about in a folksy, yet contagious way. Natural, simple beauty, Jefferson thought.

Alice stood. He held his breath, cringing at the idea of her asking him to dance with her. Instead, she wandered past the lanterns and towards the open field. Wait, why the hell had she not asked him to dance? Wait, why are you running after her? He slowed to a walk and found her kneeling over a dark patch of the field.

"Lost?"

"No, I...I'm sorry. I haven't really been able to express my gratitude, for the job, the maps, all the new experiences, so...I wondered if I might be able to teach you something? Make it a fair trade?"

He knelt down next to her and watched her uproot a mushroom. Cupping it in her hands, she opened them and showed him the glowing gills. Thinking at first it was a reflection of the fireworks or the lanterns, he looked again and touched them.

"They're poisonous," she said. "These aren't lethal, but what makes them so bad is how good they smell." She held it up closer to him. "Yet take a bite of these and the cramps that follow are amazingly painful. Vomiting, diarrhea—and believe it or not, there are people tempted to eat them a second time. It looks very much like other mushrooms that are harmless, but if you peel the stem..." She took out a small pocket knife and began to cut. "The inside of this one is orange and the others are white."

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"I once worked in a tea shop," she said, still holding the mushroom out to him. "I'd brew different kinds of tea and make some of the treats people could order. I used a particular kind of mushroom to make crepes, and, one day when I was out gathering them, I confused the two. I peeled it back in the kitchen, but didn't think it made any difference. Well, a man became sick and I was fired, and I'd been looking for a job ever since."

"How long?"

"About a year. I was starting to really worry. My parents...I was cut off for being careless, but mostly for soiling their good name. So a rich girl with no practical skills and a reputation for poisoning people...all led me to you."

There really wasn't much to say, he thought, hundreds of responses rejected in his mind. She made sense now, just someone out to prove herself who made sure she still took the time to admire all the pretty things life had to offer.

"Did the man forgive you?"

"Yes."

"That should have been enough to satisfy everyone else." Clearing his throat, he took the mushroom from her. "You said it's often confused for an edible mushroom. Is that one here?"

Smiling at him, she nodded and strolled over to another patch in the field lit by stars and fireworks.

* * *

"Stay out here," he said to her, outside the Dark Castle. It lived up to its name, especially after spending time in Middle Earth. Alice wrinkled her brow at him.

"You don't think I can take care of myself?"

"Not many can when Rumpelstiltskin's involved," he said. "The less he knows, the better."

"You said you've worked for him before. If he's so dangerous..."

"Yes, but the pay is really, really good," he emphasized, tilting his head back. "So far we have this nice arrangement where there are no questions asked on either end and I'd prefer to keep it that way. If he knows what I'm able to do now that you're here, that might raise some questions. So..." He looked over at her just in time to see her pout. "Stay here and wait for me?"

"That's all I ever do," she sighed.

"By your design," he added, knowing full well the front door of the Dark Castle might not have been the best place to start arguing. "What? It was your idea, you've never asked to go get anything on your own."

"Never mind. Go. I'll be out here."

Rapacious woman, he thought. It wouldn't be that off the mark to presume she would leave of her own accord if deprived of the chance to move forward with her...training, he supposed. Anyone could do what she does, so it's only natural she'd want to do more. You'll have to think of something.

Offhand, passing through the corridors and stairs of the castle didn't create a sense of dread so much as disapproval, cobwebs and layers of dust. Rumpelstiltskin took most victims, er, clients, in his library upstairs, through creaking floorboards, old relics that hadn't been touched...or cleaned, in years, perhaps decades. And even now Jefferson was sure the Dark One knew he was there, just too preoccupied with whatever to come meet him anywhere.

"Don't most castles have a receiving room or something, for seeking audience or..."

"Well, well, well, on time, I see. Word has it you're doing very well lately." Rumpelstiltskin sprang up from his table full of tubes and bottles and shot him a grin. Jefferson returned it.

"What can I get for you?" he asked.

"You've looked everywhere you're able to go, every little nook and cranny of one magical world after another and still nothing?" He paced around him, and to the uninitiated, it would be intimidating, but Jefferson remembered who had the upper hand.

"I've told you before, if I knew a way to get a magic bean, I'd get it to you."

"Then I need something similar. Something that can take someone from one realm..." He placed his hands on the edge of the table. "To another." Flicking them up like they'd touched a hot poker, he moved them to the other side. "And another, and another, and another if need be."

"I think I know of something that can do that," Jefferson said, trying to match him for mystery. "If I can get it?"

"The gold, dearie! Thought that was all you wanted."

"And if I can't get it? I'm not interested in some kind of 'monkey's paw' fate where you find some creative way to punish me." Don't give him any examples, he warned himself.

"Now why would I go and do such a thing?" He placed his hand over his heart.

"That's the nature of your deals."

"Ah, but this is no deal. This is business, similar, but no. A deal requires two interested parties to uphold their ends of the bargain. Business is just that. Business," he hissed. "You either get me what I want or you don't." Jefferson opened his mouth to reassure him, but Rumpelstiltskin continued, growing ever closer, and that was never something one could get completely used to. "Trick of the trade, Hatter, spies make for bad business." With a snap of his fingers, a large bookshelf vanished into thin air to reveal Alice.

"Really?" Jefferson blurted at her.

"So...it's true, an assistant that can go to a world while you bring someone here. I shouldn't have doubted." Clapping his hands together, Rumpelstiltskin approached her.

"I'm sure we can find what you need," Alice said, and Jefferson had to admire that she held her hand out offering the Dark One a handshake.

"You know, since you're getting so good you've decided to expand, I think I have two jobs for you."

"Is it twice the gold?" Jefferson asked.

"Oh, it's twice the gold, provided you do it. I myself have an apprentice who is rather in need of some motivation. Tell me what you know off the top of that foppish head about people who claim to bring the dead back to life."

"Back to life?"

"Tick tock, dearie."

"Nothing. Dead is dead. It's not like go to a world with rain, come back and there's a rainbow..." His hands, formerly searching for shapes in the air, froze. "There's a place that has something close to that."

"I didn't ask 'close,'" Rumpelstiltskin sang. "We're not playing horseshoes."

"What would you need this person for?"

"More details to come, but I need an agreement first."

* * *

"Just how did you get in there?" he asked Alice, hustling out of the castle and starting towards home.

"I climbed up the vines until I saw an opened window." She shrugged. "I told you I was curious."

"You know, I bet he knew you were in there the whole time."

"I don't think he cared," she said after a beat.

* * *

**A/N: Again several _Alice _quotes in this chapter. The mushroom this is based on is the jack o'lantern mushroom, which I found actually does have glowing gills, is poisonous, and can be confused for edible chanterelle.**

**Okay, you probably can figure out where the next chapter will be, but here's a hint anyway: this famous land features in a book series and is divided up into four quadrants with a color schema, red, blue, yellow, and purple. It is bordered all the way around by a desert and if you're wondering what color our world is supposed to be, it's gray. The movie doesn't really address any of this.**


	5. Alice in Oz

**A/N: This chapter so far has been the biggest challenge to write, so if you only get around to reviewing one chapter, well, review all of them, but this one was a challenge.**

* * *

Black gnarled branches obscured most of the sky, violet and gray, in the haunted forest. The leaves, perpetually brown and crunchy, combined with the cackling and cawing of unseen birds gave even those raised in the Enchanted Forest chills. Most troubling of all, flashes of white darted in and out of the brush, always with a cool breeze and always transparent. They approached a shabby sign with chalked-in letters.

"'I'd turn back if I were you,'" Alice read before grimacing at the drawing of a ghoulish smiler above the words. "Well, he looks a little too cheerful if you ask me."

"One more mile," Jefferson sighed, rolling his eyes. "It seems longer every time."

"Have you been to it before?"

"No, just around it."

"Watch out. There's a hole right there," she said.

"It's not the forest you need to be the most worried about. It's above you."

Alice's head jutted up towards the sky and searched the opaque tree limbs. Cloaked and in boots, as well as an older dress she wouldn't mind getting torn, at his suggestion, she stepped over brambles and dead birds with only a slight grimace. Lights grew brighter ahead.

"Is that the castle?"

"We'll have to think of a way inside once we're there."

The rich sound of flapping thundered closer and closer, followed by...

"What kind of howling is that? It's not from a wolf," she wondered. Glancing upward, the silhouettes he'd dreaded grew larger.

"Run. Run and find a place to hide."

Scrambling back into the forest, he looked back only to see the expressionless winged monkeys soar downward, breezing past the branches, moving right past them. He covered his head, better safe than sorry, and noticed Alice wedged between two stones, completely baffled by them. They passed by, focused on something else. Still crouched, he emerged from his spot and she followed suit.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Why do they have hats and vests?"

"Because that's asking something relevant like why they fly..."

"They fly because they have wings," she groaned. "Are they, somebody's...her pets?"

"Minions, I think, is the more appropriate term." A shudder. There. A normal reaction.

"Let's hurry. If they're out here, that means they're not in the castle."

* * *

The dungeons of the Wicked Witch of the West's castle smelled of urine, the echo of dripping water nearby emphasizing it. They avoided a stray bone here and there until they came to a staircase. Hoping they could work their way up, they froze at an ear-splitting cackle and a crash from the floor above them. The ceiling pounded, perhaps dozens of footsteps giving chase, running every which way. Perhaps some prisoners had gotten away. In front, Alice crept further up the stairs until she gestured for him to come.

"They're outside," she whispered. "Now's our chance."

Every room looked the same, tables and magical trinkets, none of which were ruby and shoe-shaped. It took even longer groping each drawer when silence was crucial—every few seconds Jefferson caught himself glancing out a window to see if he could determine what the commotion was down the path in one of the turrets.

Further in, they searched a room that held traces of use, an overturned basket, some scuff marks on the floor. Leaving a witch's castle empty-handed would just about have to be the most depressing thing Jefferson could think of in his history of jobs, but the only item that caught his eye was a ball of glass sitting centered on the table. Significantly sitting centered on the table.

"What's this?" he asked Alice, but also himself, picking it up with one hand. She crossed over, the backs of her fingers rubbing it.

"I think I know what this is," she said, smiling. "It's a crystal ball."

"What does it do?" Besides sit and look fragile?

"It shows you things."

"Like a window?" He twisted his wrist to rotate the ball, but nothing came into view.

"Traveling show people have them with them, but I'm sure this one is real. You ask it questions and it shows you things, things like the future."

"Where are the slippers?" he asked it, instantly feeling stupid.

"Pretty sure you have to know how to ask it questions," she said. "Even the charlatans that would stop at the tea shop knew that." Eyes widening, her palm hit the table. "But you know who would probably know how to ask it the right way..."

Jefferson set his jaw. Something beat nothing, always did, and they couldn't spend forever searching.

"Hail to Dorothy! The Wicked Witch is dead!" they heard, jumping at the voices resounding from the turret.

"Dead?"

"Time to go," Jefferson said, pocketing the ball. Rumpelstiltskin wanted a magic bean anyway. The ball probably liked getting questions like that. About to get the hat going, two green-skinned men in thick, fur-accentuated uniforms entered.

"Looters already? This castle belongs to us now!" one growled, spear up and at the ready.

Sifting through his pockets, Jefferson found the knockout powder and hurled it right between them. Two thuds later, he stood staring at them, mind blanking at what to do next.

"We should go," Alice whispered, eyes never leaving the two guards.

"We have to at least try to find the slippers."

"Well, I don't have green skin. You don't have green skin, and he..." She tapped the shoulder of one of them with the toe of her boot. "He and I don't exactly wear the same size."

"If the Witch is dead..."

"If the Witch is dead we can come back, after these...people leave. Please. How long do you think that powder is going to last?"

With one final scan of the room, he threw his hat.

* * *

"Let's get this done," Alice said, shivering, pulling her shawl further up her neck. "There might be some of those guards left."

"That's why you're going to poison them while I look."

"What?" He ignored the death glare, flashing her a grin.

"Kitchen's that way. Mushrooms are somewhere in there." He pointed back towards the forest. "You serve them up. I'll look around while everyone else is cleansing their system, and then we can officially close this job."

"And they'll welcome some random woman in their kitchen?"

"I did."

She opened her mouth, but shut it and glanced back at the woods.

* * *

The dining hall that might have once been an imposing threshold to hell now lay filled with drunken guards with crooked hats, spears leaning against the stone walls, shards of glass and multi-colored powders scattered all over the floor. Even the monkeys jumping and screeching on the tabletops, almost as if in song, made one wonder how terror had ever been possible. Jefferson, shrouded in the shadows of the tapestries and shelves, tiptoed past them, reminding himself all it would take would be one miscalculated step for the terror to return. Then again, he thought, judging by how much booze they're dumping down their gullets, Alice's handiwork may not be necessary after all. With the ball under one arm, the velvet of his coat cushioning it, he sneaked up the stairs.

* * *

They weren't here. There was no other place to look. Over an hour of ransacking, of turning the rooms upside down, led to his elbows pressing against a tabletop and his hands clenched in his hair. Hearing a fumble followed by a guffaw outside, he crouched underneath the table, the cloth the only thing between safety and discovery.

"And that little girl," one of them slurred. "Guess the Wizard took her back to her land."

"Land?"

"Some star called Kansas...full of witch slayers."

Confirmation was usually a good thing, a confidence booster, an opportunity...and sometimes it sat on your back like a heavy weight, deciding to press into you deeper while you were already low. So that's it then, he silently said to the ball. A powerful otherworldly object, it wouldn't need much sweet-talking to persuade Rumpelstiltskin to take it.

Making sure the two guards had left, he all but pranced down the stairs in an attempt at stealth. Most everyone still sitting at the long tables of the dining hall had passed out, more empty bottles laying around than he remembered. He could almost stroll into the kitchen as if it were his own house.

Alice's back was to him, arm up, cleaver in hand, tiptoeing towards a corner.

"Gotcha!" she cried, gripping a long spotted snake by the tail, dropping the cleaver and instead whacking its head on the counter. Seeing him from the corner of her eye, she turned towards him, the snake limp in her hand. "This thing crawled right over me! Rats came in the tea shop once in a while, but this had teeth like you wouldn't believe. The mushrooms are over there, what's left of them. They're fine to touch, but like I said, don't let the fact they smell good fool you. This is the most disgusting kitchen I've ever been in. Make a map out of this and all you need to do for this room is swipe up some of this gunk that's everywhere..." She wandered back to the back where she'd hung her coat, still muttering to herself. "...label that the kitchen and then pick the pencils and the paints right back up..."

"The slippers aren't here, but thanks for asking about my progress."

"Not here?" That caught her attention. "Where are they?"

"Apparently they're being used to take the wearer to another land."

"But you still have the ball, right?" He showed the top of it to her, returning her smile, which...looked a little bit awed, to tell the truth. "You've never gone back empty-handed, have you?"

"Never. Oh, and I did get this." He held up a vial of red liquid. "I have no idea what it is, but we can play with it later and find out."

She wasn't saying anything, which typically didn't happen unless she was being instructed. Her smile was still there, that...that awe. He hadn't really considered anything he'd done since she'd come on all that impressive; some of the times he was in Oz before—those were impressive, harrowing even near-death experiences, some, but he nevertheless felt thrilled.

"You'll have to brief me on what this other world is like, the one with the doctor you'd mentioned." They walked out into the dining hall where the remainder of the conscious guards were occupied with purging mushroom. Like walking out the front door of his own house, he thought.

"So what did the fortune tellers at the tea shop predict for you?" he asked her.

"Who said I had anything to do with them?"

"Come on. You said yourself your curiosity is insatiable. What future did they come up for you?"

"That my first child would be a girl," she said, stuffing her hands in her pockets as they stepped outside, the haunted forest and the surrounding mountains encased in a crisp air.

"So a fifty-fifty shot of being right." Seeing her shiver, he put his arm around her.

"Exactly."

* * *

**A/N: No point in giving a clue for this next location. If you've seen the show, you know what Jefferson's next task was after he went to Oz.**


	6. Alice in Uberwald

**A/N: If you had guessed "Land Without Color" or "Universal Horror" or "Transylvania," or anything like that, you are right. I took the name of this land from the TV Tropes website. **

* * *

Sunlight had glinted off the doctor's glasses before they jumped, but not here, not in this colorless world. Rich in shadow, there would be moments when the doctor would turn his head and the lenses seemed silver, an unsettling feeling for Jefferson, who perceived them as brightly as the glow emanating from the countless pounding hearts he'd seen mere hours ago. To have grown up knowing they were in the house, sitting by the fire on a quiet night and catching a faint thump, relentless, ever-present, and then to not even know who the bodies were—he shuddered.

"It is the beating of the hideous heart," Dr. Frankenstein said, their footsteps soft along the field of grass.

"What?"

"Just quoting a work I've become acquainted with," he chuckled. "It's guilt you feel."

"In my line of work, guilt's not something you want to be carrying around with you," he said with a smile. He shouldn't have mentioned the queen's tears. Love wasn't something that had exactly been abundant in Jefferson's life, but he did know it when he saw it and the kind of hope he had helped dash still pulled at his own heart.

"Of course not. Well then, we shall track down your charming girlfriend and go our separate ways?"

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Ah! Even better," the doctor said with a leer. Lecherous bastard, Jefferson thought.

They came to a row of shops on a cobblestone road that would eventually lead to Frankenstein's castle where his work awaited him. None of the peasant folk were the wiser, however, going about their lives with the same sort of determined fervor of the people in the Enchanted Forest. Minus the color, the two worlds could be eerily similar. The sooner they left, the better.

They opened the door to a small general store, one little bell heralding their arrival, and Alice approached them in a...he wished he knew what color...dress with short, puffed sleeves and a high waist, delicate and feminine...except for the exhilarated way she bounded towards them, carrying something wrapped up in a kerchief.

"You're back! I was wondering if the doctor could take a look at what I found. I was over by the marsh, and I came across this." She huddled closer to them to block the eyes of any other customers and revealed a scaly foot, dark green with bits of algae still draped over it.

"What is that?" Jefferson asked, sure he would come down with some disease if he poked it.

"Ah. There are rumors of gill-men who live in the black lagoon, the marsh, as you referred to it." Frankenstein shot Alice a condescending nod. "They're about the size of a man, fish-like and devoid of human language, an anomaly of science, really."

"Are they rare?" she asked.

"Exceedingly. This one must have lost a fight with another."

"Someone must be willing to pay a pretty penny for it then, I would think?" He couldn't help but return her smile. It was natural, wasn't it? He liked being surprised with the bizarre oddities she managed to scrounge up, and what else was there for her to do temporarily stranded in a land where she knew no one? Besides buy a new dress that flattered her figure with the tag still on it.

"I want to wear this back. Don't worry." She smirked at the fact his eyes were still on the foot. "I won't ask you to hold it," she laughed.

"Do I look that repulsed?"

"You look about ready to retch at the sight of it. Here, there are a few buttons in the back. Can you help me?" She covered the foot back up and turned her back towards him, tossing most of her hair to the side.

Sweeping the rest of it out of the way, Jefferson gulped, not sure why, at his fingers brushing the skin of her back, feeling the bumps of her spine. For an instant, he imagined being able to gather her hair up whenever he wanted, letting his fingers comb through it, and plant a kiss on her neck. The corner of his eye noticed Frankenstein flashing him a dark smirk. With a swallow, he finished.

"Thank you," she said, lower than she should have, or maybe that was his imagination. "It's a little out of my price range, but haven't you seen something and decided you just had to have it? I'll just be a second."

The doctor's eyes trailed her as she left them, traversing lower and lower on her body.

"Such professionalism, doctor," he warned, narrowing his eyes at him.

"Oh, we don't like that idea one little bit, do we, although we don't want her for ourselves, no, no, no..."

"She's my partner."

"You said yourself she wasn't," Frankenstein sang, resuming a straight face once Alice crossed back to them, cradling the wrapped-up foot, her treasure. "Well then, goodbye, Mr. Hatter, Miss Liddell. I doubt our paths will ever cross again, but never say never." He gave Jefferson's arm a playful smack. "Cheer up. You've done me a great service."

"Let's go," Jefferson said, setting a brisk pace that forced Alice to catch up to him.

"What happened while you were gone?" she asked, but all he could hear was the unyielding thump-thumping of disembodied hearts, crashes of fruitless lightning, and Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice...

"Jefferson?" She raced around until she was in front of him, hands out. "You look terrible. What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Guilt, definitely not something a jumper should be carrying around with him. He bit his lip and glared at the gray horizon.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Here. Stop." She reached around for her satchel.

"Alice, I swear to the gods, if you show me that foot again..."

"No, I, I bought you something, too." Blushing as they entered the room between the worlds, she produced a champagne-colored cravat, scarlet swirls patterned into it. He blinked, not knowing whether it was his new enemy or something he'd keep forever. "I just thought you might like it and, well, maybe now given the circumstances, it might cheer you up." He allowed himself to bend a fraction so she could tie it around his neck herself. Peach, a peach-colored dress.

"Thank you," he coughed, catching the fact her eyes smiled much broader than her mouth did at the words.

It felt wrong to not let her in on exactly what all had happened yesterday and today, that maybe he would discriminate a little more with his, their, clientele. The queen, Regina, had clung to him at the first strike of lightning, a lump of despair and heartbreak that would shape itself into something that believed it could never be broken down again, and in a queen, that could spell disaster.

"Alice, do you want to have dinner tonight?"

* * *

Alone in his house, Jefferson lied awake and staring at his ceiling, the heartbeats silenced after an hour or so of meditation. Perhaps a vacation was in order, one where he could rethink just for whom he would work. He'd left selling the foot up to Alice, so he didn't even need to see it again.

No, damned trial period, he couldn't go on a vacation now.

So you're still pretending she's on probation, are you? Sound, Jefferson. Very sound.

When he took the time to step out of himself and view his world with objective eyes, he couldn't quite bring himself to confess she was beautiful. Too short, very straight eyebrows...not a big deal, but something that made her face seem even narrower than it already was. She was...elfin, cute, and he never, ever grew tired of looking at her. It's not even been three weeks, he told himself. Nothing serious, nothing more than finding your little assistant cute. You're not going to fall in love in a matter of weeks.

No, sometimes it happens even quicker, was his last rational thought before he fell asleep, waking up in the middle of the night to catch himself thrusting his hips into the bed with an ecstatic "Alice!" on his lips.

* * *

**A/N: You know, if the show can get away with fairytale characters in quasi-medieval costumes saying things like "okay," then I can have Victor Frankenstein say "girlfriend." Obviously I don't own _Frankenstein _or _The Creature From the Black Lagoon_.**

**Clue for the next location: this place was thought to be real for a long time and as recent as 2011, scientists identified the possible location of off the coast of Spain, speculating that it had been destroyed by a tsunami. The Canary and Madeira Islands have also been possible locations.**


	7. Alice in Atlantis

**A/N: Hi! I know I usually do weekly updates since I don't tend to get reviews otherwise, but I figured that since I had such a delay between chs. 5 and 6 and with the holidays, I'd be charitable and post an update ahead of schedule. 8 should still be up sometime next week, though! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. I really appreciate them.**

* * *

"Are you...are you happy doing all this?"

Heady question for seven in the morning, Jefferson thought, with still a couple of strips of bacon on his plate. Maybe walking to that building, climbing that ramshackle staircase, and inviting her to have breakfast with him hadn't been that good an idea. Her stacks of maps between them, he inhaled.

"It's just that when you told me about the queen, how heartbroken she was, I..." Her fork clinked down on the plate.

"I've done a lot of things that most would consider...morally ambiguous," he began, scrunching his lips and pausing. "It was how I'd decided to do business a long time ago—get what they want, no questions asked. No discriminating. Most of the time, it was, and still is, just scrounging, occasionally stealing. I could live with that."

"The faun..."

"The faun was definitely in that ambiguous category. But..." he laughed at himself, a short, desperate one. "I felt no pity for that creature, and yet knowing that she, the queen, really thought she'd be able to get her True Love back...I don't know." No answer is down there on the knots in the floor, he told himself. "She probably felt all alone her whole life, nothing but her mother's hearts to keep her company, except him. I've had happy moments. You've had happy moments, right? Some little piece of time you knew you were going to hang onto and remember always? That was him, and I...I helped that die twice." His eyes still on the knots, he closed them, afraid he'd hear the beating again.

"Then, if I decide that I can't be a part of something like that..."

"Stay." It was out of his mouth before he could even think.

"Jefferson," she said after a pause, taken aback at the suddenness of his response.

"Stay. We can, we can discriminate a little more carefully. We're doing well, no reason not to be a little more selective with our clientele." We, our...he looked back down at the floor, not wanting to see what all was going on in those caramel eyes and behind them, not wanting to plunge into her brain and find out how every cog, every gear turned and worked and brought her to every decision she'd ever made, every little thing in every world she considered beautiful. To want to know that badly before three weeks had even passed stretched reality and hovered over the realm of madness. So the answer was simply to not want.

"You would do that?" The cogs had yet to learn how to conceal hope, but he liked that.

"Unless you don't want to stay," he whispered. Summoning a grin, he said, "You haven't been to Atlantis yet, have you?"

"What's in Atlantis?"

"A day off?" Alice smiled. She'd stay.

* * *

Atlantis used to be part of the surface world, according to the Museum of Natural History there. A booming kingdom with copious amounts of energy to devote to serving mankind through technology—everywhere there had been advancements, in medicine, travel, communication, the studies of the minds and natures of those in their civilization. The breakthroughs and inventions overreached the population and just when their vast wealth of knowledge looked to expand outward to the rest of this world, the mighty waters claimed it in under a day.

Living in it now meant living in a strange sort of air pocket, a dome-like barrier powered by the crystals and engineering. It still could boast more culture and art than perhaps anywhere else—theaters and restaurants and galleries made up the majority of the streets. If not for the infrastructure still looking like it belonged to the ancient world, the citizens still preferring ancient dress, and no luck in reaching the surface as of yet, it could be a comfortable place for someone from another world to live.

Of course, night and day didn't really apply, which made Jefferson believe he would slowly go insane in such a place. He didn't know just how light or dark Atlantis really was, just that the technology lit everything needing to be lit in a subdued whitish hue, always early morning or nearing twilight. Perhaps that's why clocks were everywhere, ornate monstrosities.

"Jefferson!"

He and Alice turned to see a black-haired man in sandals and a red chiton bounding over to them. From the corner of his eye, he could see Alice's mouth open to ask, but there was no point.

"Jefferson," the man said, grinning. "Don't you look like a sight for sore eyes?"

"Don't you look out of breath," he said. "Alice, this is Spyros. He's a portal jumper."

"Really?" Alice held out her hand, eyes wide. "I wondered if people from other worlds had the ability. How long have you been doing it? I just entered the field myself."

"Not as long as Jefferson here," Spyros laughed, the hint of a blush coming over his face. "In fact, I saw you and was hoping you could help with something."

"It's my day off."

"Please, it is of some importance."

"Get someone here to help you out."

"I can't!" Spyros hissed. "It's not jumping. It is...more personal." He glanced over at Alice.

"Go on," she said. "I can wait for you."

You said that's all you ever do, he thought about saying, inwardly seething at being volunteered. Why couldn't all that curiosity be rude enough to insist on coming along, too? That would force Spyros to drop whatever this was.

"It's your day off, too," he muttered.

"If you take a while, we could explore tomorrow. I saw the schedule. We don't have anything to do until the following day." Flashing a honey smile, the kind that dared you to say no, she adjusted the shopping bag over her shoulder and took out her sketchbook. "If you're not back by dark, well, if you're late, I'll put it that way, I'll just find some lodging. Spyros? It was lovely to meet you. We'll have to get together later so I can hear about all the places you've been to." She touched Spyros' arm and crossed the street, heading out of the city towards the fields.

"What's so personal?" Jefferson asked once she was out of earshot.

"I need someone who's been to the mountain. The precious stones on top." He shuffled his feet on the ground. "I need one to propose to Zinovia."

"The princess?" He rolled his eyes. "You aren't serious."

"As serious as can be, friend."

"Princesses are nothing but trouble."

"You know, you speak as though you get a lot more than you do," Spyros snapped. Jefferson laughed in hopes of being able to shrug that off.

"I'm a busy man! I don't have time for one-night stands!"

"Come to the mountain with me. I'll owe you."

* * *

"What's it like having a partner?" Spyros asked. The mountain's grass gave way to bare rock about halfway up, the incline steady rather than steep. Atlanteans chose the lower portions for picnics and games, the top, while not threatening, demanded more exertion.

"It's great."

"So...it is not great?"

"No. I said it's great." The cool breeze covered his neck in gooseflesh, which would only add to his irritation.

"But, you don't sound like it is. I thought of interviewing for one myself. She goes with you so you can take someone somewhere and then you switch back, yes?"

"Yes."

Spyros stared at him and reached for a rock.

"Is she ripping you off?"

"What? No." A cloud would have been nice, a V of geese.

"You don't like her then?" Spyros asked, pulling himself up to the peak and heading towards the bare end of the mountain. A sparkle here and there caught Jefferson's eye as he caught up.

"I said it was great, all right? Find the stones and let's go. In my world, there are people who live on mountains and some that climb them just for fun. You wouldn't be able to just take your sweet time prying those out of there because someone would see." Spyros grunted, producing a rock of soft glossy violet. Jefferson sighed. "Let me see those tools," he said, and proceeded to pry.

"Careful what you're doing there," Spyros said with a careless tone. He took a seat. "I take it then the problem is that you don't-don't like her?"

Jefferson cut along a deep purple line to include it in the stone.

"You remember before I started jumping I was a palace guard," Spyros began. "Good times. Occasionally we would be sent out to investigate a corpse, find out what happened. I had to take them to pathology...to someone in medicine who can determine how they died."

"I could have figured that out."

"Well, you're busy. Anyway, I never minded going. Briseis was there. This was before Zenovia."

"Naturally." Jefferson rolled his eyes, having to place his elbow on his knee for support as he started pulling out the stone.

"Beautiful woman, would always stop what she was doing to chat. You can imagine the toll her trade had on her; mine did, too, so we started stopping at the tavern after our shifts, to talk and listen to the musicians. A few times there would be people dancing. Well, I asked her to dance one evening, and I kept telling myself I could control myself, I could handle this. But the soft light, the music, touching her—that was the first time I had tried to kiss her and it was the last time I had tried to kiss her. She didn't feel the same way."

"That I also was able to glean." He paused. "That must have been embarrassing."

"And I kept getting embarrassed every time I had to go down to pathology after that. Sucked all the fun of finding corpses, I can tell you that."

"Is there a point to this rambling?" He came and sat next to him, stowing the palm-sized gem into his bag.

"My point is that feelings have a way of getting out, friend, and the longer you fight it, the less control you'll have over when they decide to come out." Sighing, Spyros stood and dusted himself off. "But it's getting late. Thank you for coming with me."

Any other time, Jefferson would feel prompted to ask how precisely one could tell when it grew late in Atlantis, but not this time.

* * *

Jefferson and Alice sat at the table on the terrace of the room she'd rented for the night, a spacious two-bed affair, and played cards while overlooking the street three floors below them. The sharp sound of cards shuffling and the occasional sip of a drink were the only sounds aside from the people below bustling to the taverns and theaters. They'd paused in their game once to watch four young men, each one staggering drunk, try to support one another while trying to sing a round.

"Jefferson? You've been to all these places...were you ever tempted to live in one of them instead of the Enchanted Forest?" She looked at the card he'd played and then skimmed the ones in her hand.

"No. The Enchanted Forest is home. Not much of one, mind you, but still home."

"Not much of one?" She looked up at him and then reached for her glass. "Why's that?"

"Probably because I was a hired orphan to help out at a hat shop that wasn't going anywhere," he said. "Two brothers, no children, so they had to be creative when it came to finding help." They laid down more cards. "Can't say I was overly useful, especially when I stumbled upon a secondary use for their hats," he said, shooting her a grin. "Well, they both died, I sold the shop, used that money to buy the house, and took the odd business proposal ever since."

"Were they good to you?"

"They were fine. I had plenty to eat, an education, some time to play. But they made it clear they weren't parental figures, if that's what you want to know." Rather set in their ways, he thought, recalling faces he'd pushed out of his mind long ago.

"I think I would have felt a tad guilty selling it," she said to herself. "Not that you should, I didn't mean it like that..."

"I don't think you would have, not with how poorly it was doing. I just...never wanted to worry about making ends meet." That round done, he picked up the deck and shuffled it before dealing cards out again. "There would be times when they would fold under these horrendous haggling..." His hands searched for words. "I don't know. When you're poor and don't want to be, you can find yourself in some very desperate predicaments."

"If it's any consolation, the rich sometimes do, too," she said quietly, her fingers interlocked and under her chin. Trying to read her eyes again, he settled on a response.

"You really should forgive your parents, Alice."

"Oh, I have. I have. It's the two of them that want nothing to do with me," she said, gazing a little too intently on the arm-in-arm couples on their way to late dinners.

"I hope one day they'll accept you."

"I've already found someone who accepts me," she said to the street.

Silence wormed its way to them, the snap of the cards hitting the table notwithstanding, and Jefferson found himself at a loss as to what to say next. The night, even without a moon or stars, still possessed an atmosphere to it, music and laughter inhibition-lowering background noise—didn't matter, he decided. Losing control was for other people.

"I don't want you to go with me to the next job," he said.

"Why not?" A look of horror washed over her. "How do you know about the hat only bringing in the same number of people that go into it? Is it something to do with this land?"

He would have laughed if he thought it wouldn't offend her. "Spyros is how I know about that, and it's nothing as morbid as you're thinking. Just found out we couldn't go pick the other up. Remember I said not every world is fun? This one is dangerous."

"It can't be any worse than a world that has gill-men swimming in swamps," she snorted.

"It can, and it is, Alice. Please, please don't go with me. I despise this world like you wouldn't believe. It's not safe." Seeing her mouth open in a retort shape, he reached into his bag and set the stone in front of her. "This was what was on the mountain. You can have it."

She picked it up and turned it in her hand, momentarily ensnared by it before giving him a dubious expression.

"Is this a bribe?"

"It can be a gift, provided you don't go with me."

"I prefer gifts without conditions," she said, setting the stone in front of him with a heavy thud. Smirking, he picked it up and placed it back towards her.

"Then that's what it is," he said. "With a humble request you do not go with me to a world that makes absolutely no sense to anyone, not even the people who live there, the most dangerous aspect of it being they simply don't care there isn't any sense to be found." Her lack of a comeback emboldened him just a little, but not to the point of losing control. Not him. "Please. I am asking you not to let me put you in danger."

"Deal," she finally said, shaking his hand. Smiling at him, she stood up and crossed over to him. "Thank you. For this. I, I'm going to go on to bed, though. We can take our time leaving tomorrow, can't we?"

He nodded, too afraid to speak.

"Goodnight. Thank you," she said again, holding up the stone. Once she was back in the room, the door to the terrace closed, he let himself breathe again, taking just a few seconds to forget control and enjoy the way his heart was racing.

* * *

**A/N: Hint for the upcoming location: This land, while all of you have heard of it, is a satire of modern mathematics. When math stopped being taught the same way it had been for thousands of years and started teaching things like imaginary numbers and square roots of negative numbers, etc, it seemed to the author that all logic had just flown out the window. If a world was based on such abstract, crazy math, then, well, you get this next place.**


	8. Alice in Wonderland

A painted rose—there had to be some way that kind of thing could be obtained within the Enchanted Forest. Going to and from Wonderland at any time was nothing less than stepping into the bowels of everything this multiverse had to offer, but to go for such a pointless, needless, excessively stupid purpose left Jefferson reeling. At least you came upon one as quickly as possible, he thought, still hearing those damn animals running their pointless, needless, excessively stupid race miles away. No, don't bother thinking about it, he told his brain, so keen on trying to find meaning here. There is no point, a waste of effort.

He hadn't lied to Alice about the dangers, however. Wonderland boasted the Jabberwock, the Queen of Hearts, and an array of shadowy figures without an iota of a code of conduct.

"Having a mad, mad, mad time, are we?" sang a voice from a tree. Nothing but a crescent sliver gave away the presence of one of Wonderland's most annoying inhabitants...and that was saying something.

"Just ready to go home is all," he said, not blinking at the green cat eyes materializing. The stripes of the cat appeared next.

"No more following the White Rabbit?"

"No, I won't make that mistake again." He cringed, reminded of his first time here.

"It can't really be a mistake if you learned from it, can it?" the Cheshire Cat asked, grin wider than ever.

"I don't have time for this." He turned to go.

"No time for Alice?"

"What?" He turned back around, already prepared to make an attempt to strangle something that can appear and disappear at will.

"The Queen's newest acquaintance, didn't you hear?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Want to see me do a trick?" The Cheshire Cat bounced on the tip of its tail along the tree limb.

"What are you talking about?" Jefferson bellowed, stomping closer to the tree. "How does the Queen know about Alice?"

"Not enough to know she's bad at croquet..."

"She wasn't going to come," he muttered to himself. "She's here?"

"Who?"

"Alice!"

"What's an Alice?"

Don't get sucked in, don't get sucked in, he inhaled, closing his eyes. Find the right question.

"Are they at the palace?"

"Oh yes, with a great many mad people." Humming to itself, it faded away, that shiny narrow grin last.

* * *

If hedgehogs were scampering in one direction, the Queen's croquet field was in the other. He shut his mind off, not anxious for his imagination to take over, especially in Wonderland.

"You!" he called over at a long-limbed hare with its ears opened.

"Crap," it said, pawing at one of its ears. "Jefferson! Couldn't get enough of Wonderland, eh?"

"What's going on in there?" he asked, pointing to the other side of the wall.

"Croquet."

"Croquet with who?"

"Look, man, I know you were kind of getting attached to that dormouse and I know I don't have the teeth for it, but everyone around here was like, 'try dormouse; they're delicious,' and I couldn't wait for the Duchess to come and smother the little thing in pepper, so...I gave into peer pressure." The hare shrugged.

"Get me in there," Jefferson ordered.

"You know, now that I think about it, you couldn't really get enough of Wonderland if you couldn't care less about it. That was what you had said the last time, you couldn't care less, so obviously you'd had enough, but now you're here. More, less. Less, more."

"I can't take any more of your logic. You get me in there."

"You mean you can't take any less," the hare corrected. With that, Jefferson gripped it by the throat and held it up in the air.

"Okay, okay!" it gagged. "I can get you in, but you've got to stay with me. I'm on the list."

Jefferson followed him to a gate where a man in black, white, and red, looking every bit like a playing card, stood guard.

"Name?" he asked.

"The hare." He glanced over at Jefferson from the corner of his eye. "Fyodor March."

The guard didn't look over any list; rather, he snapped off a few leaves from the shrubbery and rubbed them between his fingers.

"Would you rather have a lawn or a sheep?" the guard asked.

"A lawn," the hare answered as if the answer was obvious.

Not bothering to stay with them once the guard moved, Jefferson scanned the playing field. A row of similarly dressed men stood several feet from him, gripping ropes tied to the beaks of gangly flamingos. Alice stood off by herself, her arm behind her so her hand could cling to the hedgerows for dear life. The Queen of Hearts, veiled and crimson, hit a hedgehog with her flamingo with regal elegance.

"What are you doing here? Are you all right?" he hissed at Alice from behind the hedgerow.

"I'd take being shot with an arrow over this," she whispered back, her eyes not leaving the Queen.

"How did you get here?"

"The same way you did."

"That's just great. So you played with a hat?" Alice. Curiouser and curiouser. "What are the stakes of the game?"

"The theme of the game seems to be heads."

Think, he said to himself, waking up his imagination. How to make a world that had no rules, no sense of order, work for them?

"You're next, my dear," called the throaty voice of the Queen, beckoning an attendant to come nearer with her horn.

"Just don't make her mad. I'll be right back." Taking a split second to pat her hand, he was off.

* * *

"The Queen wishes to inform you that if she loses her temper, you will lose your head," he could hear the attendant announcing. The cards had moved a throne out for the Queen to watch the flamingo refuse to cooperate with Alice. In fact, its long neck and legs had hoisted her up into the air upside down, her skirt coming dangerously close to exposing her undergarments. Laughing and gritting her teeth, Alice tried to catch the flamingo's ever-dodging neck.

Jefferson worked fast behind the hedgerow, the plate of cookies from the White Rabbit's house in his lap.

"It's not a game for everyone," the Queen mumbled.

"Indeed not, Your Majesty," he heard Alice muster with forced congeniality. "I'm afraid I don't have your talent for it."

Meaning she didn't have her own deck cheating for her. Peeking out towards the game, he watched her straighten herself out, both arms straining to keep the flamingo's head down to the ground, and prepare to hit the hedgehog.

Without a sound, he pushed the plate to the end of the hedgerow and gave a low whistle. Kneeling down to retie her boot, she picked one up and examined it.

"'Eat me'?" she mouthed. Trembling at the sight of the Queen and her entourage nearing, she stuffed the cookie into her mouth and gobbled it up. Without even finishing licking her lips, Alice shrunk down to the size of a blade of grass.

"Where did she go?" a few of the cards asked each other. Jefferson crawled further back along the hedgerow.

"The Queen has ordered the game to be paused in order to form a search party!"

That was the hare's cue. If he didn't deliver...

"I see her! I see her!" the hare squeaked, pointing back towards the castle. The cards dashed off, a few staying to position themselves at every corner of the Queen's personal bubble to escort her. Searching the grass, Jefferson picked Alice up and stashed her in his coat pocket before taking off for the mirror.

The signs of Wonderland couldn't be heeded unless one wanted to be lost. The trail to the mirror boasted no threats save for maybe a talking flower here and there. Sprinting right into one of the giant mushrooms, he broke off a piece and dumped it into his pocket.

The impact of Alice reaching her normal height whirred him backward.

"We have to go one at a time. I have to go first. Count to thirty and then follow me in," he said to Alice, who was crouched down and still quivering.

* * *

Come on, come on, he begged the mirror, seeing his reflection for the twenty-nine longest seconds of his life. At last, her hands emerged out of it, along with the rest of her. She crashed into him, shaking in his arms.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, tightening his hold. He pulled her off of him only to look her over, to cup her cheeks to see her face, still flushed with dilated pupils. She fell back into him, forehead on his shoulder, her breathing ragged. In the room between the worlds where they were more alone together than in any other place in existence, he could feel his eyes brim with tears.

"Are you all right?" he choked, realizing she hadn't spoken.

Nodding, she swallowed, focused on regaining control of her breathing.

"I'm sorry," she finally whispered, the side of her face pressed up against his heart.

"It's all right. It's all right, my..." He broke away a few inches and studied her, suddenly wanting nothing more than to close the space between them. With access to every world imaginable all around them, there really was nothing but her, only her warm breath on his chin, the way her muscles cinched when his hand wrapped around her waist. It was subtle, but someone so mesmerized by her face could see her eyebrows lift and could hear a soundless gasp as he shifted so she could feel every inch of what she was doing to him. He'd all but had it with self-control, backing her up into a wall, still pressed into her thighs. Her lips are so close...

Going in for a kiss minutes after she almost lost her head, are we? For shame, Jefferson, he thought. Her body never even got a break from shaking.

At the last minute, he kissed her forehead instead, savoring the taste of her skin more than he should have. Breaking apart, they opened the door to the Enchanted Forest.

* * *

**A/N: At the time this chapter was written, the show had not yet stated that Cora was the Queen of Hearts. I had a feeling it was her, so I left it to where it could have worked either way.**

**Okay, the next place is the one I am least familiar with, so I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that will be true for most of the readers. Therefore, the hint will be a little more blatant than the rest. This is a prehistoric sort of world filled with reptilian people and ape-like people (it is not _Planet of the Apes_). There are quite a few books that take place in this world, but the author is MUCH better known for his other series, regarding a character who has been in a ton of movies to include a Disney adaptation.**


	9. Alice in Pellucidar

Unrolling the wrapped chunks of meat made one grateful to own a pair of gloves, Jefferson thought. The juices from cow, goat, and even serpent meat flowed in the grooves of the paper, little red-tinted rivers, onto the humid ground. He and Alice piled it together, one eye on their work, the other on their surroundings. Any flash of movement could be the cue to break for the nearest place to hide. They flinched once or twice at the calls of the giant creatures in the distance, the long-necked ones content to chew the leaves off the treetops. The entire place, this Pellucidar, was so surreal, that it took far too long to process that they were gentle, no fiercer than a horse...a massive horse with the stomping power to squash you flat.

They ran off in opposite directions at the roar and throaty growl of one of the creatures, the one that needed to be distracted with a free lunch. Crawling behind fallen tree trunks, the creature emerged, mouth stretched and curled in a perpetual sneer. It walked on two legs, for the arms appeared limp and weak by comparison. Teeth bared, it explored the pile of meat, not yet partaking.

It doesn't want to be fed. It wants to hunt, Jefferson thought, lips drying at the thought. Come on now, he told himself. A whole world of gigantic animals, some of which have to be sick or unable to put up a fight—it would be ridiculous to go after two paltry humans.

It noticed a few lumbering animals near a hill, small-headed ones low to the ground with a series of armored plates running down their back. Eyes narrowing just like a person's, it advanced towards them.

Sensing opportunity, they ran into the brush where the meat-eater had been, fecal mountains with hovering flies all around them. He'd still take that over how the place had used to be, dominated by the Mahars, flying reptiles with uncanny human characteristics, mainly the negative ones. He'd stick his hand in the dung if it meant avoiding them. The shadows of the brush gave way to a clearing filled with huts, small fires providing a glow here and there. Unfolding the small booklet from his pocket, he turned to the map, pointed to the designated hut for Alice, and made their way towards it.

The people outside, wrapped in skins and furs, stared at them. Their jutting foreheads and long arms gave them an ape-like appearance. Their hair, men's and women's, fell down their backs in dark coils. The dim but enthusiastic looks in their eyes made Jefferson wonder if the "key phrases" he'd been given would do any good.

Inside the hut, a female sat with crossed legs on the floor, rocking her swaddled baby.

"You talk to her," Alice said.

"She knows why we're here." Approaching her, he tried to smile. The woman nodded at him, holding the baby out to him. His hands were out, but he hesitated. Strangely, the baby looked close enough to ones he'd seen in his own world. Seen, but never held.

"Are you nervous?"

"No."

"He's a baby. It's not hard. You just mind their head and don't drop them."

"Tell you what—the next time we have to take a baby across worlds for medical attention, you can take him." At last he gathered up the child and froze, just knowing even a shuffle backward would result in disaster.

"That's fine. I like children," Alice said. As if to chime in himself, the baby gurgled and spit up on the arm of his coat. It'll wash out, it'll wash out, he reminded himself, giving the mother a forced smile.

"He's cute," he said, knowing that would not be on the phrase list. She answered with a toothy smile and an affectionate pat on the child's head. "Well," he said, hoisting the baby up so he could rest on his chest because...well, the lapels just had to match the sleeves now. "You're in a for a day of stimulating discussion. You can have this, although I don't know what good it will do." Tossing Alice the booklet, he stepped out of the hut, hearing a reserved, "So...can I help you make lunch?" as he stepped out.

* * *

Doc, miner by day, dabbling doctor in his spare time. He pushed up his glasses as he examined the baby, who pulled down his hat. Jefferson liked the Enchanted Forest, home was home after all, but the very idea that one of the most trusted doctors in the land received his medical degree from a magical pickaxe raised an eyebrow. A sizable population felt the same way, so the dwarf had taken on cases from other worlds. Warmed by the lanterns, the earth, and the close proximity of others in the mine, he stood back and watched the examination.

"Just an ear infection," Doc chuckled. "See how he pulls on his ears there?"

"He doesn't seem to be suffering very much."

"That's because it's not night time. You wait until you have a baby with an ear infection that's supposed to be sleeping start screaming in the night. During the day, they're distracted. Aren't you? Aren't you?" he cooed at the baby, whose chubby, non-existent wrists turned, his hands tugging on his beard.

"Do you have some medicine for him?"

"I do, I do." Off he went further into the mine, his whistling echoing through the tunnel. The baby cocked his head and gazed up at Jefferson, who returned his gaze with some bemusement. Evidently, he met the child's approval as he was stretching his arms above his head.

"You want to be picked up?" He lifted him up and threw a spare dwarf hat over the shoulder of his coat, just in case. The baby's eyes widened and his fingers danced along the sides of Jefferson's face. Bored with that, he looked down and started playing with one of his rings. "Baby likes the shiny," he laughed to himself.

"Here we are!" Doc returned, a bottle and a dropper in his hands.

"Stuff those in my satchel, would you? Hands are full."

"There we are. You tell the mother twice a day."

"Well, that may not be as simple as it sounds," Jefferson said. "Are they, is she, intelligent enough to understand that? The booklet's little grunt, grunt, parenthetical ooh, grunt makes my Sagoth-tongue leave much to be desired."

"Here." He scrawled a few symbols onto some parchment, folded it, and stuffed that into the satchel as well. "They don't have a written language as of yet, but pictures they understand. She'll be fine, don't you worry. That maternal instinct will kick in."

"Great. Thanks."

"How is it you can bring people back and forth?" he called to him on his way out of the mine.

"Trade secret!" Jefferson called back. It's not the people-maneuvering when it came to Pellucidar; it was getting all the people out alive.

* * *

The mother rushed to him, grunting and flailing around with excitement as she took her baby, chirping and making short howls. With one hand, she dug into his satchel still slung over his shoulder until she found the medicine and the parchment. For a split second, with her forehead knitted above her one eyebrow, he could find intelligence in her face, some complex thought going on in her brain.

Alice squatted in the back of the hut, sorting fist-sized berries on a crude plate for her. The woman gestured to her and with subtle facial expressions, the women seemed to be able to communicate, albeit in a strained way. Caressing the baby's face once, Alice smiled at the woman before stepping out.

"So sweet," she murmured, looking back.

"Clock ticking for getting that baby girl of yours?"

"I take it he didn't grow on you very much?" She gave him a dubious look. "You can't tell me you didn't think he was sweet."

"No, but he owes me a coat," he said, wondering just how one was supposed to admit to liking blowing raspberries on a baby's stomach and still be a man.

"And you owe me a dress while we're on the subject," she said, spreading her skirt to show him the tears and the smudges.

"Deal."

"And don't think you can cheap out on me just because this one was old," she said as a mock threat. "Now, since the meat is gone, how do we get out of here?"

That one would be tricky... The portal was back out in the field where not only the gigantic meat-eater prowled, but also smaller pack hunters that could pop out of the tall grass at the last second and peppered the imagination with a slower, more agonizing death.

"Do you think it'll still be hunting?"

"I have no idea how much food satisfies something of that size." He paused. "I do have an idea." He started sprinting for the field. "And I'll get you the most expensive dress money can buy because that one's about to be ruined."

She darted after him and stopped just short of where he stood, up on the hill where the armored creatures had grazed. One lay still, its body even more hulking in death.

"I saw one didn't look so good earlier," he said.

"Why did the predator just leave it?" she asked. With shaking but outstretched fingers, she reached out and touched its scaly skin. Exhaling, her hand ran up to one of the armored plates on its back. "A meat-eater couldn't bite down on this. It would have to go after one that was already weak."

"I don't think he noticed it. But...we alert the meat-eater to it..."

"It didn't take the meat we brought," she argued.

"But this is something it knows."

"And you think the two of us can push it?" He mirrored her incredulous expression. He let the opening of his knife speak for him. Alice frowned, still not understanding.

"I have two knives, and I'm pretty sure that thing can smell a trail of blood."

"Jefferson!"

"What?" Payback for the gill-man foot, Alice. Payback. He paced to the other side and stuck his knife in.

"What are you doing?" Horrified Alice. He'd have to memorize that.

"I'm carving a smiling face into this side. You carve in a frown and the meat eater can roll him over onto whichever side matches his mood. Seriously, what does it look like I'm doing?" Grinning at her, he sliced a long piece of flesh. Face so contorted he thought she might cry, she leaned over the carcass and cut a dainty slash into it. The slow and steady approach, he considered saying.

* * *

Dragging jagged slices of flesh, with haste, mind you, would probably top the list of Jefferson's least favorite visits to another world. The odor seemed to course through his very veins it surrounded them so fully. Flies and small, clawed scavengers flocked to it. They raced against the time it would meander its way to the meat-eater, enticing its nostrils with the irresistible promise of a banquet.

The ground shook beneath them. The tiny scavengers scurried out of sight.

"Time to stop," he said to himself. "Alice! Let's go!"

"Wait!" She ran back along the blood trail, out of his line of sight for an eternity, and then hustled back to him. "Now!"

Not a time for questioning, he threw the hat onto the ground and spun it just as the enormous shadow of the meat-eater fell over them.

* * *

"What the hell were you doing?" he screamed in the room between the worlds. It echoed slightly, which would have been embarrassing if anyone else could have been around. She didn't answer him, rather smirked and held out her blood-stained hand, palm up, at him. Edging over to her, he looked down at a small triangular object with dull ridges.

"It's a tooth. I pulled it. I would have thought they would be bigger. Maybe it's worth something?" she asked, her grin one of guarded optimism.

"Worth your new dress, you mean." His tone gruff, he took in the sight of her tattered clothes, her face and arms speckled with dirt and blood. She looked beautiful. He smiled to reassure her before they headed towards their door.

* * *

**A/N: Yes, I did quote _Jurassic Park _in here. The clue for the next location—it actually doesn't require traveling to another world as it can be traveled to from the Enchanted Forest. It's been mentioned on the show and we've met someone from there, but as of yet, we have not actually seen it. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and if you have been reading and not yet told me what you think, please consider letting me know.**


	10. Alice in Agrabah

A fire eater held a thin torch in each hand while a roaring fire erupt from his mouth. A few grains of sand blew around with even the lightest breezes, latching onto eyelashes, tips of ears. On a flat rooftop, Alice sketched the pointed archways, her mouth scrunching at the difficulty of copying the calligraphy.

"We should just destroy it," she said without looking at him. On his lap rested a lamp, a dented, lightweight thing, commonplace if one didn't know what languished inside it.

"Or use it," he sang, hovering a gloved hand over it. The action made her pause her drawing to give him a look of horror. "Relax. I know how much trouble these things are."

"And yet our client does not."

"Is that for us to decide?"

"No, but about being more selective about what jobs to take..."

"There's a reason I took this one," he said. "Easy money, isn't it, to just hop on a boat and find something rather than go all the way to another world?"

"If you call getting that easy," she snorted.

Jefferson had reworked the schedule to come to Agrabah on this day, switching it with the next destination after hearing just who would be spending a holiday out here, sorting through elaborate rugs, touring the palace.

"My bet is that after one wish he'll throw it in a river," she said with some bite, resuming her sketching.

"Hopefully weighted down," he added, picking up the tiny lid and closing one eye to peer inside. Commonplace inside and out to the naked eye. Giving up on the prospect of seeing a genie without the temptation to make a wish, he turned his gaze towards the sprawling city. The marketplace buzzed with life, every vendor trying to outdo the other, the tourists and artisans talking amongst themselves, a nasally-sounding instrument summoning up a snake echoing in the background.

"There's someone I need to go meet," he said. "Meet back here in an hour?"

"Just don't miss the boat," she answered, and Jefferson knew in an hour he'd find her in the exact same spot with finished page after finished page.

* * *

"Mr. Liddell?" he gulped before summoning up a disarming grin. A great man with a great blonde beard, he looked more suited for raiding and torching villages than flaunting his riches and dallying with high society. Alice's mother looked slightly more how he'd pictured her, a slender, athletic frame with a brunette version of Alice's wavy hair, but she possessed a disinterested air, shooting him a brief dismissive look.

"Yes? Do I know you?"

"No, sir, but your name is one that's been uttered one too many times in my line of work and it's high time I made you a business offer." He let the words flow out, his brain concocting a rich back story from his flimsy excuse to be here. Inviting himself into the booth, scooting in and whipping his bag from his pocket. "Dinner's on me. Now, this is likely a preposterous question given your extensive background, but do you happen to know much about portal jumping?"

"Hmph," he grunted. "There is only our world. The rest is fantastical nonsense."

"Try the lamb," Mrs. Liddell interjected.

"Fantastical, yes, but nonsense, I can assure you, it is not. Even as we speak there are those finding unknown trinkets of great worth, networking with those who possess prestigious talents and experiences. Anything you can imagine, I can find. Find, and bring to you...for a small fee."

"Boy..."

"Oh, I'm sorry, how rude of me. Jefferson. Jefferson Hatter." There were the clients who established a hierarchy early on with names like "boy" and even sometimes "kid," and those who did not. Jefferson preferred those who did not.

"Some might find your coming here and interrupting our dinner rude, but I admire your tenacity, so I will be frank with you. This world, whether there are others or not, is where the fortunes are to be made. This world is the center of the universe, one with its own lands as diverse and full of those with prestigious talents and experiences that you mentioned. Even Agrabah, a mere boat ride away from home, is far different from the Enchanted Forest, don't you agree?"

"It is a sumptuous feast for the senses..." As is your daughter, the most insolent and crude part of his brain thought, the rest of it snapping at it to keep its opinions to itself.

"So I thank you for your time and for dinner, but that second part's not really necessary," he said, so charming and friendly it would be easy to like him without knowing what Jefferson already knew about him. He had to make the conversation last longer.

"Mrs. Liddell, do you think this is the only world there is? Or the only one worth knowing about?"

"I'm not interested in philosophy," she began.

"Then don't think of it as philosophy. Think of it as geography."

"I don't purport to be an expert," she said, her lips pursed together. "Take our house back in the Enchanted Forest. Inside you'll find the standard things of our world, kitchen, sitting rooms, parlor, but you'll find peppered throughout it vases and rugs from this land, artwork and fountains from the Far East—a whole little universe contained in our small house."

Jefferson guessed there was nothing small about it.

"The odds of another such world must be insanely small. Why, even in our world, there were groups of people forming culture, building structures far more complex than they needed to be while other groups were still hunting with spears half-naked in the heat."

"Well said, dear," Mr. Liddell said, sipping his drink.

"I can assure you both that many of the places I've traveled to carry a wealth of knowledge and culture."

"We're satisfied, is what I'm trying to say."

With all your crap in your estate, it's just as well you are, that little part of his brain piped up, but he quelled it. One can be prideful and still be decent, he reminded himself. Not every rich person he'd met he could honestly call horrible.

No, in fact you're head over heels in love with one of them, aren't you? Just go ahead and voice your intentions like a gentleman. That's why you're really here, isn't it?

No. No, no, no.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can say to change your mind?" he tried, hands up, going for the boyish too-darn-cute-to-deny ploy. "I'll tell you, the competition is minimal and the profits exceed even my expectations, and my expectations can run very, very high."

"So can mine," Mr. Liddell said. He wiped his chin with a napkin and thumped his elbow up onto the table, Jefferson half-believing he was going to be challenged to an arm-wrestling contest. "I'd said you didn't have to pay for dinner, but you bloody well will if you wear out your welcome. You seem an interesting enough fellow..."

"Good conversation," his wife added, being sure her smile towards him was unobstructed and obvious.

"We're just not the fantastical sort," Mr. Liddell said. "What you say falls into things like novels and staring up at the clouds and forming shapes out of them."

"That is most certainly not what I do with my time." Jefferson gritted his teeth. Many could voice disdain with him about this or that, but he worked for his living.

"No, no, I didn't say you did, just that it's a little too fanciful for me."

"Then I'll put it in more material terms. You come up with something that your rivals don't have, I find it, you pay me, and now you have an edge. You have something no one else does, and that can be a very powerful thing. I have no doubt you can't complain about your...financial situation." Sloppy, Jefferson. You're not here to insult them.

"We're comfortable."

"As well you should be, but there's always the future to think of?" Ah, here was opportunity. "Children to provide for?"

"We have no children," he said, cutting his meat with the same casualness as if he'd said he had no spare coins to deal out to a beggar. Mrs. Liddell followed suit without the slightest hint of hesitation or guilt.

I love Alice and I'm going to marry her and we're going to have dozens of children you'll never be allowed to see, say it! He stared, glared, an inner war commencing, which part of him knew was pointless since admitting it out loud really meant nothing, admitting it to himself really meant nothing because he already felt that way...you're not making any sense now, Jefferson. Respond.

"Then I'll leave you to your dinner," he said, taking his time to stand and take in the sight of them once more. "I just thought I'd try my hand, you know."

"I know. Good day to you." He didn't look up from the table.

"Maybe someday you'll realize you threw away something amazing."

* * *

"Where did you go?" Alice ran up to him once he made it to the roof.

"Oh, business venture."

"And?"

"I try to avoid working with pompous asses," he said.

"Shockingly, I do, too," she laughed. He showed her the bags of tea he'd picked up on the way back, the exotic flavors written in their language as well as this land's spurring her eagerness to try them. Settling on wanting to meet her parents based on the fact that Alice was not the only one who could be curious from time to time, the discussion with them repeated itself in his mind. He needed a distraction.

"You want to learn how to throw the hat?" he asked.

"I've thrown it before."

"Yes, and look where it got you. This would be under supervision, with my expertise as a resource."

"How resourceful of me," she said, rolling her eyes, watching him take off his hat with a frown. "If we don't catch the last boat, we won't get back until tomorrow night..."

"We have plenty of time. Come here. It's all about how you throw it." She came over to him, and Jefferson couldn't help but find it convenient such a lesson required pressing up against her back and placing his arms on top of hers, fingers wrapping around her wrist. He could hear her breath hitch before a few muffled giggles. Grinning, he curved his arm, watching her knuckles whiten as she clenched the hat. Something had to be wrong...unfortunately...he was all but forcing her fingers onto the hat.

"Alice," he whispered, his lips inches from her cheek. "Why have you never asked to throw the hat before?"

"I've asked."

"No, no, you haven't."

Wiggling away from him, she shook her head. Her hands went from her hips to her head, back to her hips... Straightening, he let the hat fall to the ground and crossed his arms. Living with the two utter delights he'd just met, especially with a mind like hers, had to have been so tedious, so suffocating, and then to be thrown out, just shown the door with probably the same amount of courtesy they'd show to a servant...

"You're hearing your parents' voices in your head, not yours."

"I poisoned someone," she said, eyes hard, but not on him, looking past him, back in time.

"And he forgave you. That's that."

"Jefferson, I can't do it." She mirrored him, folding her arms and glaring at him.

"You can do anything."

"Anyone can do what I do."

"No, they can't. They don't. You see very many other people just go blindly into a world they've never been to before, that they know nothing about, trusting that someone will come back to get them?"

"It sounds stupid when you say it like that..."

"It's brave." He edged towards her. "It's adventurous. And on top of that you always manage to find more than what we were supposed to get." For too long, they stared one another down, words refusing to come for either. Inhaling, Alice knelt down and picked up the hat.

"We might go somewhere," she warned, turning enough to where she fit back in his arms. With a smile, he breathed her in and felt her tighter, more determined grip on the hat.

"That's part of the fun," he said into her hair.

"Like this?" she asked, curving her arm as if it were a discus.

"With that kind of flair?" he teased, listening to her laugh against him. At this point, he didn't care if they missed their boat. Here, above the boisterous sing-song of the marketplace vendors, the sky basking everything in a bold red and violet sunset, he felt he could finally think clearly. I love you, Alice, so very, very much.

The hat spun on its own like a top, the light from inside it beckoning.

"That wasn't so hard," she said with a sigh of relief.

He had to agree, he wanted to say. It was so much easier than he'd ever expected.

* * *

**A/N: As stated in the chapter, this doesn't exactly count as a separate world since the show does mention that Agrabah is just a distant land from the perspective of those in the Enchanted Forest, and yes, it is the _Aladdin _universe, if you will. Call me a cheater, but come on. Its culture is so vastly different from the EF culture that it should count as going to another land. I guess I should mention now that I don't own any of the franchises these lands belong to, and I suppose I should mention that there are two chapters left. **

**Hint for the next location: This world first appeared in the book _Lost Horizon_, but the world itself seems to have overshadowed the book, now more a metaphor for a hidden away paradise, similar to Eden.**


	11. Alice in Shangri-La

**A/N: Okay, wanted to clear up some questions I've gotten. This story has a ton of deleted scenes, deleted mainly because they interfered with the story I wanted to tell, which was the three-week trial period. So no, you will not find out what happened to Alice (although there is a reference to it in the next chapter and you do find out where she ultimately is), you will not see Grace (although I did have a scene of something going on when she was a baby), and there really is only one chapter left. These 11 chapters plus the next one make up the story I wanted to tell. However, you can probably expect a one-shot sequel in the near future. I hope you understand.**

* * *

Twenty-one days. In twenty-one days she'd completed her map and now sat next to him biting her lip as he tried to focus his attention on it. He'd been at her door just after sunrise, inviting her to breakfast, unable to stop smiling.

"Did you notice the curvature there?" she asked.

"I noticed." She beamed, hands on her knees, elbows locked, a picture of contentment. It was far from what he wanted to talk to her about, but he'd take it, at least until he had some idea of how she felt. On some level, perhaps a more romantic person would call it his heart knowing, he believed she felt the same way. Being with her and discovering how, how happy she was, how much she seemed to enjoy being with him...but it was so intoxicating a feeling he didn't want to trust it alone. Stop staring at her, he told himself. It has to be just an ordinary day.

"Your room is ridiculously small," he blurted.

"Oh." Baffled Alice. For all her curiosity, he didn't see that face much. "Well, I didn't have much money when I rented it." He turned away without responding, scolding himself with plenty of profane words. She must have sensed something was wrong since he could feel two fingers on his hand. "Where are we going today?"

"Oh. You'll like it. Shangri-La. It's a paradise."

"Really?"

"Probably not, but, but I don't stay long enough to go looking for its imperfections," he said with a shrug. It was her turn to look away, hands spreading her map, as if she were searching for the words on it.

"Jefferson, when you were growing up with the brothers in the hat shop, did..." she trailed off, closing her eyes. "Did they ever come to love you like a son?"

"No," he said, quickly only because of how clear the answer was. The reason for the question on the other hand... "No, it would have been strange if they did."

"I see," she whispered.

"Do you want to go now?" She nodded.

* * *

The people of Shangri-La lived, but, to Jefferson's more earthly view, only in the physical sense. They sought wisdom rather than knowledge via meditation, harmonizing with nature, sequestered in their temples and monasteries and convents in search of enlightenment. Whether it was fate rewarding their efforts or the effect of living in such a world, he didn't know, but the inhabitants experienced unheard of longevity. Aware of the worlds that made up the multiverse, perhaps all of them, they considered themselves the last hope for all of them—that when human greed and violence brought everyone to the brink of destruction, they would step in with life-changing steps to create a utopian universe.

Or something like that. Really, he found it all rather condescending, and he wasn't exactly ignorant of the vastness of the multiverse. He explained this all to Alice while leading her to where he recommended she stay while he took a nun to the Enchanted Forest to observe just how horrible that situation was, he was sure.

"Right here," he said, pushing back a branch. A shimmering river came into view, clear save for fallen petals from the countless blossoms. The aromas of flowers and fruit combined with the sunshine transcended words. "I take it you'll be fine?"

"It's beautiful," she breathed, shuffling down the riverbank. Instead of leaving right away, he leaned against the tree trunk, smooth and warm without a single insect skittering up it. "What's wrong?"

"These nuns, they...they can be very, very skilled at reading people."

"Reading minds, you mean?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"Maybe, either that or they've just been around long enough to know what to look for, but..." He folded his arms and exhaled. He didn't want someone poking around in his mind before Alice came along, and especially did not want that after.

"Don't want a nun knowing all your dark secrets?" she asked it with a teasing sort of innocence, meant to make him elaborate, he could tell, and if he put off picking up his client long enough, she just might succeed.

"Would you?" he settled on.

"If she's really so wise, I'm sure she'd understand how uncomfortable that would make you. And maybe even if she sees everything in there, she'll have the decency to not let you know." With a smile, her eyes drifted up to where they could lock with his. "There must be some minds that are amazingly fun to be in."

"So I should entertain her?" He mirrored her grin, his mind backtracking to try and pinpoint just how long they'd been flirting. She liked him. He knew that much now, for here he could read her eyes better, truly take in the different ways she smiled. After, he thought. Do...whatever...after.

"I need to go get her," he groaned, starting up the bank towards the temples in the distance.

"Don't be gone a long time," she called to him.

* * *

The tiny, olive-skinned nun walked with a cane and strands of silver had just begun to streak her hair in spite of a complete lack of wrinkles on her face or hands, just a line here or there. Jefferson supposed, based on seeing men and women who seemed to be in the prime of life actually nearing their three hundredth-odd birthday, she could be anywhere from six to nine hundred. She smiled more than the others, though, which gave him some hope for the nature of wisdom. Her sisters at the convent had informed him she'd taken a vow of silence which would break upon her setting foot back into the holiest corner of their convent so she could relay the condition of the other worlds.

He let her hold onto his arm throughout most of the journey, finding her excuse for a stride endearing.

"Almost there," he said, helping her along a meadow with an incline. The birds chirped above them in the treetops, the afternoon sun strong, but not blazing. A doe and her young fawn pranced by.

_Thank you._

Jefferson stopped in his tracks, unsure how he knew she'd jumped into his mind, but positive she had.

_I've respected your privacy if that's what worries you. _

"Thanks..."

_After so long you learn where to seek wisdom and where to leave well enough alone. _She smiled at him. Trying to empty his mind didn't seem to be to any avail, it never did, but he no longer heard the voice in his head. Exploring mind after mind for so many years, it had to be difficult to find one that was truly unique.

_Yours is truly unique...sorry. _The nun blushed, which caused him to freeze mid-step with his jaw dropping. Shaking his head, he quickened his pace, gesturing for her to follow.

_It's habit, really. I was trying to respect your privacy. It's just, it's just such a fascinating mind, and to have listened to it at this very day, when you've reached some decisions..._

"Here we are," Jefferson announced with more excitement and relief than would have been polite. Fortunately, the other nuns approached in a row and gathered around their sister, the latter disappearing into the huddle.

* * *

Back at the river, it was so quiet one could swear to hearing the petals of the blossoms drop lazily down into the water. Expecting to find Alice at the water's edge sketching, Jefferson followed it a ways, wondering if she'd found a way to find trouble in one of the few lands that could actually pass for a paradise. He heard nothing, spotted no flash of movement except for the occasional squirrel until he came upon a low-hanging branch with her dress folded over it as if it were a towel rack. The pale yellow skirt billowed with the breeze. Holding his breath, he blinked at it a few times, pondering if this was something he could handle or not.

A short whoosh captured his attention, however. He peered down through the branches to find Alice wading around in the chest-high river, the straps of her slip mercifully visible. Opportunity, some sly thought sang out in his head. With a grin, he slipped off his coat, vest, and shirt and kicked off his boots.

"Fooling around while I do all the work?" he asked. She jolted, then smiled, and he knew it wasn't his imagination there was a split second of glee in between as he stepped into the water. She leaned back to soak her hair before summoning up a dismissive expression.

"Since when is letting someone pick your brain considered work?"

"She didn't."

"No?"

"Well, she tried not to." He ducked his head under, even now impressed with the water's perfect temperature and couldn't help smiling as he neared her, although he wondered how she couldn't hear his heart pounding. Side by side, Alice looked him over, nonchalantly at first, and then stared at the stag lapping up a drink several feet away.

"You know," Jefferson said, clearing his throat after a moment's thought. "I said I didn't spend a lot of time here, because I didn't want to be disillusioned." She nodded. "In a way, I do that with people. I thought that once I knew just how many worlds exist, there would be no surprises...no, nothing special. That for all the superficial differences, each place would be exactly the same as any other."

"That's a depressing way of looking at it," she said.

"How would you have looked at it?"

"I guess I would have seen it as there always being an opportunity to make new friends."

"You would." If anything summed up just why he loved her... "Well," he said to the water, his reflection more a wavy shadow. "I don't think that now." Swallowing, he forced himself to look up at her, right in those eyes. "I've been...very surprised lately."

"Is that what you think now?" Alice whispered, the movement of the water failing to hide her chest heaving.

"I can't stop thinking about you."

It was instinctive, so natural to turn towards her, lean into her touch, bask in just how sweet her lips were. He could hold the base of her neck, glide his hands up to her jawbone, every second something Jefferson never wanted to end. Alice's fingertips on his back, Alice's body pushing up against his, Alice's curious tongue.

"I love you," he said, foreheads touching, still able to see a cloud of disbelief roll away to all-too-visible hope.

"Really? I love you, too," she said, not waiting for his response. Kissing her, arms around her so tight they lifted her an inch further out of the water—who could ask for anything more? He could, he thought, breaking away just enough to speak, not to take his fingers out of her hair.

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes. Of course." She closed her eyes to kiss him, but dodged it at the last minute. "Here?"

Here? Ah, the downside to being with her forever—the occasional bout of stupidity. Oh.

"Now?"

"Why not?" she asked, biting her lip and raking her fingers up his back.

"Why not indeed?"

* * *

They married in Shangri-La, a more scenic, but quieter wedding than most, but then decided to go home from there. The cottage, their cottage now, Jefferson thought, his hands cupping Alice's cheeks and yet somehow also trying to untie the sash at the back of her dress. Falling onto the bed, he took advantage and rolled on top of her, savoring her throat and leaving the untying to just one hand. Gasping and arching her back, she tried to undo his buttons blindly.

"It is a small bed." Her voice broke into a pant as his hands roamed.

"Too small," he said into her throat, peeling her dress off of her. There. Nude, lovely, glorious Alice. He leaned back down to kiss her, but felt her palm on his chest.

"I'm not a virgin," she warned, voice shaking.

"Curiosity?" She nodded, but didn't need to. It didn't surprise him at all.

"Neither am I."

"How can I..." she trailed off, gasping and wrapping her arms around him. Joy. Pure joy. "How can I make it up to you?"

Ridiculous question. Now was most certainly not a time to think at all, much less that way.

"Be you," he whispered in her ear, holding her tight to him. And he was never, ever going to let go.

* * *

**A/N: No hint for the final location, but I think you will find the ending optimistic.**


	12. Alice in a Land Without Magic

**A/N: Okay, this was originally going to be the last chapter, but due to popular demand (aw shucks!), there will be an epilogue after this one, so this is the second to the last chapter.**

* * *

Neal Cassidy sipped from his cup with shaking hands, done with trying to force calm. The background noise of the diner all faded away, the word "broken" thundering in its place. He'd packed a bag. He'd decided he'd just use up the rest of his sick days and then just quit later over the phone. He'd rented a car. Only one thing was keeping him from hopping into it right now and counting off each green mile marker on the highway, each one bringing him closer to Emma.

Alice.

Oh, he'd thought about asking her out a few times. She had a nice figure, even nicer smile, always stopping to chat a little bit with him, asking him questions that never seemed to be too prying. The waitress uniform she wore, periwinkle blue with puffed sleeves and a white pinafore, gave her a childlike sort of air, but her eyes didn't. Sad, haunted ones. But those hadn't been what stopped him from asking her out. It was two other things—one being the little wedding band on her finger and the other being Emma. Jeez, it was like Emma was always sitting in the booth right next to him, shooting him that, "did you really just say that" look.

But today couldn't be just courteous chatter. He caught her eye and she maneuvered over to him, smoothing her pinafore with an arm that wore three watches, all set to the same time, "in case one of them quits," she'd said.

"Hi, Neal. More tea?"

"Actually, you got a break coming up? Like long enough to where we could talk?"

"Like a date?"

Jeez, even if he'd been planning to ask her out, that dread on her face would have stopped him cold.

"No, just to talk. It's kind of important."

"Okay," she said slowly, an eyebrow up in the air. "I'll be right back. Just let me tell them I'm going on my break."

Exhaling, Neal wanted nothing more than to chug down his tea and dart out to the car, but he had a feeling he would want the tea to sip on during some rather awkward pauses, and he knew he'd never feel right about hopping in that car without talking to her first.

"What's going on?" she asked, sitting across from him, hands folded in her lap. He hadn't prepared himself for her being so close, the sadness in her ever-shimmering eyes more than unsettling. She wore a headband, too, so it wasn't even like a strand of her long hair could be a barrier between them and him.

"I guess there's no easy way to really begin it, so...about eleven years ago, I met this girl. Emma. She was great, is great. We really hit it off. She was the one, you know?" Nothing but patient blandness responded. "Well, I'm going to be on my way to see her."

"Things didn't work out between you?"

"No, no, I...I found some things out about her." He took a sip of his tea and leaned in, relieved she seemed to be doing the same, just more wearily. And who could blame her, he thought. Get ready to have the whole place start laughing at you. "Do you believe in multiple worlds?" There was a pause, an unreadable pause. Time for a sip.

"You mean like heaven, hell, purgatory..." she said with the tone of someone taking great care choosing her words.

"I mean like actual places, where people live. Places like here, but, but different."

"Yes."

No hesitation. That was good. That was a good sign. Then why couldn't he breathe easier?

"What would you say if I told you that Emma was from another world, and she had some...business with that world that kept us from being together?"

Alice leaned back into the booth, back straighter. Great poker face, Neal thought.

"I'd say, well, I would ask how you knew that, and how you could be sure?"

"I was shown something, what it is isn't important. Do you want to know what a man told me? He told me that there is a world, a place where the characters from stories are people. Are you still with me?"

"I'm with you," she whispered.

"It sounds crazy, but just listen to the story. In this world, a queen cast a spell, a spell over every single person there."

She paled. Neal felt nauseated at just how pale, like he'd just told her everyone she'd ever known had died.

"What kind of spell?"

"It was a curse that brought them to this world, with no magic, only they don't remember who they are. They're not able to really live their lives. They're stuck."

"What does all of that have to do with Emma?" she asked, voice cracking.

"She was supposed to break the curse. I left her, eleven years ago, and just yesterday, I got this...by pigeon." He slid the postcard across the table to her. It hadn't left his side since he'd received it.

"'Broken,'" she read, face still an unreadable mess, face still pale.

"He said he'd send me a postcard. Whatever Emma's had to do, she's done it. So I've got to go see her. I've got to make sure she's okay. I've got to tell her I'm sorry." Sighing, he fell back into the booth and said out loud the words he'd thought every day for eleven years. "I'd have rather faced any kind of magic crap with her, would have rather faced the unknown with her, than have both of us be struggling alone, knowing how everything works."

"Storybrooke, Maine," she mouthed to herself and then looked up at him. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Do you believe it?"

"That's irrelevant to why you chose to tell me your...story."

"When I first met Emma, I could tell she was different. There was just something about her. Something in her eyes."

"That sounds more like love at first sight than anything having to do with magic and curses," she said, some bite in her voice.

"I thought so, too, and I think it was, but then the man I met had it, too. August. Been trying to figure out what story he's from," he laughed to himself. "He was from her world, had the same look, and I think you're from that world, too."

"Just something about my eyes?" she scoffed. "If that's a line, I'm not looking for a date."

"Oh, come on! Your name's Alice." He pointed to her name tag. "Look at your dress, your hair. What's your last name?"

"Hatter."

"The watches, you bring me tea all the time..."

"I bring you tea because that's what you order."

"Look, I'm not going to think you're crazy if you say it. Because I know you are. Somewhere along the line, you opened some door and went down a rabbit hole." She laughed. "What's funny?"

"I was going to say something perverse about the many doors, being up against the doors, but..." She spun her ring around her finger with a bemused expression, recalling some inside joke he wasn't part of. "But that's no one's business, is it?"

"So you're Alice?"

"I'm Alice." She inhaled. "You're going to Storybrooke?"

"Right now. I had to find out if you were who I thought you were. I didn't want you stranded. I mean, I don't know how you got here..."

"We're not talking about that," she snapped.

"Right. Right, absolutely we're not talking about that. I just thought you would know people, friends, family..."

"A husband and a daughter," she said, tears just about ready to fall.

"Wow. I, I had no idea." He offered her a handkerchief, old-fashioned, he knew, but had always found them charming. "I'd say I could understand, going back to see Emma, but I can't imagine going there to a kid."

"You're going now?" Alice asked, hope shining through two tears on her cheeks.

"Yeah. You in?" He stood and offered her his hand.

"Yeah, I'm in!" Leaping up, she took his hand.

"Shouldn't you clock out or something?" Neal asked, laughing from the adrenaline, shared adrenaline now.

"Screw it!" They raced out the door and she followed his lead to his rented Honda, a candy apple red Civic with a single leather suitcase in the backseat. Like old times, he thought, not much more than a girl and the clothes on your back...but this time he'd get somewhere, really get somewhere, the place he'd always wanted to be.

"We'll get you a change of clothes on the road," he said, starting the engine and flooring the brake by mistake. "Sorry. I'm just..." He reached across the console for her hand and she took it in a firm grasp. "Ready?"

"I've caught an opportunity," Alice said, eyes dancing. "And I'm never, ever letting go."


	13. Epilogue

**A/N: Okay, a few notes here. This was written before the airing of "The Outsider," so I guess this now officially falls into AU now. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it, but you'll see where it has veered off. Also, the show has mentioned both Henry being eleven now and yet Emma and Neal meeting eleven years ago. I'm no math whiz, but I would have said twelve years ago to be on the safe side, but I also wanted to be consistent with the show. So that is why that possible discrepancy is there. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed. It means a lot to me.**

* * *

Jefferson had worried about Grace, even before the curse, even back home. Seeing her around so many other children her own age just emphasized it...although twenty-eight years of stagnant childhood really couldn't count as childhood...but he pushed insane trains of thought out of his head. He'd had enough of them. Intelligence, physical development—she was on track if not a little ahead, and she'd been far more capable of accepting responsibilities than he had at her age. No, it was her...he couldn't even call it childishness. But an eleven-year-old girl still interested in playing tea party and talking to her stuffed animals made him wonder, especially compared to Henry, who spoke more like an adult than a few actual adults in Storybrooke.

"Papa? The left hand?"

"Sorry." He played the accompaniment at the piano. She'd chosen some _Sesame Street _song for them to play. She didn't watch it anymore, he knew, but the willingness to return to it so often made him wonder. He watched her mouth the lyrics about how great a rubber ducky was, watched her concentrate on her fingering of the keys. Smiling, he kept up with her. It was a gift to be around her and just let Grace be Grace, nothing less.

She'd been the one with the idea to sell the house, after all, and he wished he'd thought of that before he and Herb and Deb had worked out their arrangement. Jefferson had found work as a tailor, which was slightly better than making hats, Grace went to school, Herb and Deb worked from home and then picked up their "god daughter." She'd stay with them for the hour between school letting out and the end of his work day, and then she spent the night with them every other weekend. While he wondered if other Storybrooke children were in the same situations, Grace had decided the designated Hatter house was too big.

_"I don't think many people are going to be selling, sweetheart."_

_ "The curse is broken, Papa. Don't you think some people might be unhappy where they are? They could use a change of scenery. There's a girl in my class that lives in a gigantic shoe with a ton of brothers and sisters."_

_ "It's still a confusing time for a lot of people, though. People cling to what's familiar when they're confused."_

_ "Couldn't we try?"_

He couldn't say no to that. Someone had to find this ornate monstrosity of a house irresistible. Wanting to practice the piece again, Grace turned the page back and gestured for them to start over when they heard the mail fall through the slot.

"I'll get it!" She raced to the front door, bent down, and gathered the bills and magazines up in her arms. He'd subscribed to a few children's magazines, suggestions from Deb, Beatrice in the Enchanted Forest. He and Alice had both liked Beatrice and Garth...yeah, like Herb was that much better...but lately Deb had that well-meaning "buttinsky" vibe about her. Every single day it was, "You know we both thought Alice was a lovely girl" (as if he'd married a girl and not a woman), "but I think Paige (not Grace) would be so relieved if you would start dating again."

Not that he would ever fault anyone for loving his own daughter as their own flesh and blood, but there were days, frustrating, brooding days, when he just wanted to blurt out, "I tried dating and had two women at my house not too long ago. After some drugs and bondage, one of them whacked me in the face with my telescope and the other kicked me out the window" just for the shocked expression that was sure to follow. He twisted the wedding band around his finger.

"Papa, you have a letter."

"Thanks." Only his name on the front? No postage or return address? That's never good. Flipping it over a couple of times, he at last opened it and pulled out a hand-written note on an index card. Grace bounded over next to him and stood on the third step of the staircase to read over his shoulder.

"May I help you?"

"It's from Belle! I didn't know you knew her! She's the librarian. We go there once a week at school. She's so nice. What does she want?"

"It says she would like..." he trailed off, raising his eyebrow at her. "What business is it of yours?"

"It is if it's for school?" she tried with a hopeful grin. Jefferson shook his head.

"Shouldn't you be feeding Dinah about now?" Herb and Deb at some point had bought her a kitten that was now rapidly growing into a kibble-eating bottomless pit. Dinah, he'd snorted. Most certainly not a name he would have picked out. Aside from being separated from Grace, the processed knowledge in his brain boasted the title of Worst Aspect of the Curse. Every day he sorted through information and memories he'd obtained himself along with information pertinent to this Land Without Magic—cars, computers, reality shows, and that damned _Alice in Wonderland_, the book he'd fantasized countless times of hurling into a bonfire and beating it with a poker while watching it burn.

"Is it an offer on the house?" Grace asked, bringing him back to the present.

"No, unfortunately. Just wants to meet."

"Oh! This weekend?" Dinah pranced down the stairs and allowed Grace to pick her up.

"No, tomorrow while you're in school. Sorry. How about you put Diane down..."

"...Dinah," Grace giggled, always enjoying what wrong names he could conjure up.

"...and we can start working on dinner. Okay?" He smiled again watching her weave around him to release the cat into the living room. "Dinner prep requires two hands, not one petting Dagmar."

* * *

Hands in his pockets, Jefferson stood at the entrance to the library with his back still against the door. The natural lighting and roses everywhere gave it a comfortable atmosphere, most likely Belle's doing since the exterior had been neglected for, well, twenty-eight years. She emerged from the aisles of nonfiction pushing an empty three-tiered cart.

"Hello! You got my note," she said, moving to behind the counter.

"Yes, and I wanted to address this right away; I'm not really looking for a date."

"No, neither am I!" she laughed, blushing. "No, it's...I never got to thank you. If it weren't for you, I'd still be locked up underneath that hospital. You've given me a second chance at life, so I was hoping you'd let me treat you to lunch." She picked up her purse and slid the strap over her shoulder. "Not that that can begin to repay you, but I figured it was a start."

"That's not necessary. In fact, I really don't think that's a good idea." Ouch, that had come across far harsher than he'd intended. Seeing her face fall pulled at his heart. "It's just that rumors going around of me making a move on Rumpelstiltskin's girlfriend wouldn't do me much good."

"I see," she sighed, biting her lip. "Well, if not lunch, then how about a business lunch? Do you like pizza? I've actually never had it."

"What do you mean?"

"You could browse while I order it, and if it happens to arrive while I'm helping you get a library card, then you might as well help me eat it. Do you get my meaning?"

Laughing, he looked around at the shelves.

"You know I've never actually been in a library before."

"Well, you just explore away, sir, and let me know if I can help you find anything."

* * *

Sliced tomatoes on pizza cut down on the grease, much to Jefferson's relief. He had never really cared for pepperoni or sausage or the other greasy meats. Belle ate like an adorable bird, taking quick sips from a bottle of water now and then so she could swallow and tell him about cataloging and the challenges of ordering new pieces to the collection. She eyed him a few times, her mouth parting as if to speak, which unnerved him. Such a thing shouldn't occur during a business lunch between potential friends. Friends. He wondered if he would have to stress that.

"So, I have a question for you," she said, folding her arms and leaning them on the counter, the pizza box adjacent to them. He looked up as he knew she was waiting for his undivided attention. "How did you know I was there?"

"What?"

"In all that time, no one knew where I was and I never had any visitors except Regina," she said, eyebrows narrowing. "But you knew exactly. Did you help her capture me somehow?"

"No, no. Gods, no," he breathed, struggling to swallow the little string of cheese in the back of his throat.

"Then tell me."

"Look, I made it my business to know what all was going on and who was doing what, especially Regina. I knew she had you in the Enchanted Forest, so I assumed she would have you here somewhere. I'm sorry I didn't bust you out earlier, but I had my own issues."

"Oh." She cast her eyes down and over at the box, then back at him. "I had wanted to make sure."

"So the thanking me was a ploy?"

"I was grateful to you either way," she said, sipping her water. "But it's best to be a bit guarded around some people, don't you think?" A long silence washed over the lunch, his library card ready to go. He considered just standing and heading out the door when she added, "You know, Grace is a really sweet girl."

"Thank you. Yes, she is."

"Very smart." Apparently, his nodding didn't satisfy her. "I'm not meaning to pry, but I was curious as to her mother. Has she passed away?"

Grace mentioned Alice more than he did, the memories not quite as vivid as his, though, and not as numerous. She held a sacred handful of them, mostly consisting of the two of them gathering mushrooms in the forest, singing and playing little games. It was when they did their little rhymes and songs together that he would notice just how similar their expressions were.

"No, uh..." He took the library card and stuffed it into his wallet. "She...she became lost in another world when Grace was very, very young and I've never had the ability to look for her." It was the not knowing anything—not knowing where, not knowing how she was being treated, that was the worst torture. Henry had been right, not knowing is the worst. "Listen, I don't really want to talk about it."

"Another world?" He must have shot her a look because she blushed again. "Sorry, it's just that, she's alive...probably...and you must still love her." She wrung her hands. "Jefferson, if I tell you a secret, would you promise to keep it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm only going to tell you because I think it might help you." She leaned over to him, eyes darting everywhere checking for patrons. "You can't tell anyone. Rumpelstiltskin has a son."

"A son?" Well, feeling more of a helpless, incompetent husband than usual wasn't enough, so now he could feel like a simpleton as well. He'd done more than his fair share of transactions with the Dark One in the days before the curse, and not once had there even been a hint of anything so normal about him.

"They were separated a long time ago. The whole reason he created the curse was to find him." Tears welled in her eyes and Jefferson wondered if it was the story itself, the fact she was telling it since it had been clearly meant only for her, or a combination of both. "You see, he left our world and came to this one through a portal. I know I don't know anything about your wife or you for that matter, but it sounds similar."

"People can come here through portals?" His hat never could have. Every world he'd ever been to possessed some degree of magic. This one only now did.

"Please, if word of that gets out...Regina..."

"You don't need to worry about me helping Regina do anything," he growled, standing. "I have to go. Thanks for lunch, thank you for telling me that. I don't mean to cut it short, but there are some things I need to look into."

"I understand. Good luck," she called to him.

* * *

"Hello?" Ah, that aristocratic tone Regina seemed so fond of. Some things never change.

"Hello, Regina," he said into the phone at the tailor shop, his mouth not sure whether to sneer or match the smirk he knew was forming on the other end.

"Jefferson. To what do I owe this intrusion?" He relished every inch of irritation and dismissal.

"I want a few questions answered."

"No, I'm not afraid of you," she snapped. "Does that answer one?"

"Now, now, Regina, I'm being civil. I would think having had both Snow White and Emma in my power would earn your respect." A pause answered him. "Thinking of how to respond?"

"What do you want?"

"Is Alice alive?"

"Who?" she snapped again, a twinge of fear piercing Jefferson as he felt that question felt a little too sincere.

"My wife."

"Your...wait, your partner?" she scoffed. "Grace's mother was your business partner? Oh, dear Jefferson, no one ever told you not to mix business with pleasure, did they?"

"Enough. Word on the street is that everyone here was brought here because you wanted them to be. Now you may not have known her name, but you knew about her and you knew I had lost her. Is she alive? Tell me, you..."

"I can think of better things to do with my time," she said and he could see so easily her shifting her weight from one leg to the other in regal impatience as she always did. Well, not always. She'd once been what he would have described as naïve.

"Tell me and I will never bother you again."

"Yes, she's alive. She's not here-here, and I have no idea where she might have fallen into before, but she's in this world. Since 'word on the street' back then was that the two of you were inseparable, I thought it might be comforting to know just how close you've both actually been this entire time."

He hung up, not caring if his phone would ring all day with her chomping at the bit to badger him. The shop could wait. He had another place to go.

* * *

The rented Honda Civic drove down an empty street of a drab Storybrooke, the gray in the sky emphasizing the flashy candy apple red of the car all the more. It parked at a meter in front of the pharmacy. Neal and Alice stepped out onto the street, craning their necks every which way in search of the familiar.

"It's not how I pictured it," Neal said, stifling a nervous laugh.

"How did you picture it?" Alice asked.

"I don't know. Like a Disney movie, I guess. Cobblestone roads, a big fountain in a square, maybe a dragon flying around..." He slammed his door shut and stood with his hands on his hips. "So any ideas of what to do now?"

"We get our bearings," she said, taking dainty steps up onto the sidewalk. Given the addresses and kinds of stores along this street, she thought, it had to be parallel to the main one, maybe a block or two over.

"Hey, don't wander around too much. If Emma really broke a curse, this place may not be the best place for going around by yourself, huh?" He mirrored her, though, sprinting to the sidewalk and scanning every nook of the street like they were on a scavenger hunt.

"Trust me, I know how to not draw attention to myself." This world was different, though, she reminded herself. So many of the others she'd been to had people that wouldn't notice or care about someone new. These people had known only each other for years from the sounds of that curse. They would immediately want to know who strangers were. That could draw Jefferson and the baby right to you, she thought with a hopeful smile. Or it could lead to a rollicking car chase followed by some jail time.

"We should be close to the main street," she said, distracting herself. "Once we're there, we can figure out the best places to look." He followed her, still in a rumpled suit. He'd been so excited when they'd left New York he'd parked at the front of Wal-Mart and said he'd wait for her to grab some clothes and change out of her waitress uniform. She'd returned in jeans and a yellow sweater and they were off with a screech. Now, he seemed frightened, and she feared it would be contagious. It had only been four years for her since she'd seen Jefferson, but she had no idea how many it had been for him. He could have remarried, Grace knowing another mother...what if the curse had separated them? Being without either his wife or his daughter could have finally made Jefferson snap—he'd always been so manic, and then Grace was alone...

"We have to start looking," she said, not sure if it was to Neal or to herself. "Do you see any payphones or a place that might have a phone book?"

"I have a better idea."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. What do people usually do if they can't find someone?" They crossed onto the main street where Neal pointed to the sheriff's office. "Let's report some missing persons."

Inside, after what felt like a lifetime of stairs in spite of it being only one floor up, they entered a room that looked surprisingly modern and yet something out of _The Andy Griffith Show _at the same time. Perhaps it was the single jail cell running parallel to a desk where a man sat with a young boy in the chair adjacent to them. He didn't look like he was in trouble, Alice thought, staring at him as he read from a large square book. The man, handsome in a rustic sort of way, looked up at them with a friendly smile.

"Can I help you? Don't mind Henry here." He patted the boy. "For once he's not in school for a legitimate reason."

"I have strep throat, so don't come too close," he said.

"Are you the sheriff?" Alice asked.

"No, uh, Sheriff Swan is out at the moment, work related. I fill in for her when she needs me to."

"So you're the deputy?"

The man wrinkled his nose a fraction, as if finding both disdain and amusement from that. He seemed a family man to Alice, gentle and good-humored. He would want to help.

"How about I just be David Nolan? What can I help you two with?" At the same time, the boy blurted, "You aren't from Storybrooke, are you? I've never seen you before."

Neal spoke first after a brief second of watching the boy flip through the pages of his book. "We're looking for some people, Emma Swan and...Alice?"

"Jefferson and Grace Hatter."

"Wait, you know P...Grace?" Henry asked, his face bright and alert, forcing Alice to contemplate his age, a nauseating thought polluting her brain. Grace is supposed to be six. Grace is supposed to be six. Grace is supposed to be...

"How do you know Grace?"

"She's in my class. She's at school right now."

"How old are you?" Gods, that couldn't be. He had to be somewhere around...

"Eleven."

Her legs buckled. She knew her face was without color without having a mirror or a way to see herself. Bracing herself against the edge of the other desk, she held out her arm when David Nolan leaped out of his seat to attend to her. Waving him and Neal away, she shifted until she was all but sitting on the other desk. Eleven years old. Nine years gone...minimum. Her hands flew up to her temples. Well, didn't you wonder if something like that might have happened, she scolded herself, willing some pink back into her face. Time was far from constant when it came to going from one world to another. Not often, but often enough to where it was no longer a surprise, she and Jefferson would get back and it would be at least a few days later.

"I'm all right," she whispered, nodding to them. "I'm all right."

Once that seemed to satisfy David, he turned to Neal. "What do you want with Emma?"

"I...it's no concern of yours, is it? Look, if she's the sheriff here, great. It's not about that. It's just, we go back...I need to talk to her."

"Henry, why don't you help this lady out while I see what I can do for Mister...?"

"Cassidy."

"Cassidy."

Henry led her to a phone near the back of the office space and began dialing. A rotary phone, she noted. Cursed indeed. She paid little attention to who he was with on the phone as it seemed to not be anyone she would want to talk to. Eleven years. She would have to be sure to announce it if she found a little bit of gray in Jefferson's hair. That would kill him.

"Here's your husband's number," he said, hanging up the phone and handing her a card.

"How did you..."

"I've had to learn how to work around a few things here." He gave her a sheepish shrug. "So you're Grace's mom. She'll be so happy to see you. I know I was when I found my mom." Taking her by the hand, they went over to the window overlooking the main street and gave her some directions. Everything was a whirl, but her brain surprised even her by retaining them. She murmured a thank you and headed towards the door.

"So, kid, how do you know Emma Swan?" she heard on her way out.

* * *

Closed, the pawn shop had been closed. Jefferson organized a few drawers to keep from turning the whole desk over, spilling measuring tapes and pin cushions everywhere. Rumpelstiltskin on a lunch break...or probably collecting rent or seeing to his own affairs, he thought, arms out to the side. Relax, he told himself. It's a different world, different situation—no Dark One wants to be on call all the time anymore. Oh, but Rumpelstiltskin owed him one, didn't he? As many times as he'd played delivery boy for him? You're forgetting that nice little thing called pay, he reminded himself. You can wait. You can go back in a little while, make whatever deal you have to in order to be able to leave town, and then you can go look. Pull Grace out of school for a little bit, since she'd had more than her fair share of elementary school...and introduce her to her mother who has probably remarried and created her own neat little life that we would just swoop in and destroy...

"Jefferson."

He'd have dropped anything he'd have been holding onto. He knew that voice, would know it no matter how many years had gone by. He knew that silhouette standing in the corner of his eye. As if by magic, Alice stood in the doorway, matching his smile inch for inch. The worries, the fears—all of it swept clean away once they reached each other, smiles stretching across their faces. Time froze, the two of them simply facing each other and holding hands.

"Your hair's longer," he croaked out.

"Yours isn't."

Cupping her cheeks, their foreheads touched. Smiles broadened. Jefferson didn't know what he'd done to deserve so many second chances, first his daughter back and now this. He savored her voice and touch, banishing thoughts of how it could be true. Wrapping her arms around him, she brushed his scarf, revealing his scar.

"What on earth?" she gasped. "How long have we been apart for you?" she asked with half-lidded eyes, shimmering. He cringed.

"Decades."

He'd never said it out loud before, and he didn't wonder why since Alice started swaying in his arms, her face paling. Fearing her knees would buckle, he kissed her, just a peck to steady her. Locking eyes, she answered back, he responded, and then there was nothing left to do but find a spot with plenty of cushioning.

* * *

They hadn't meant to make love, or at least he hadn't. That kind of thing should have been put off. Then again, he thought, returning Alice's smile as they lay coiled around each other on a pile of fabrics and ribbons, there really wasn't much of a precedent for their particular situation. He fought his usual urge to fall asleep afterwards and filled her in on everything—the Enchanted Forest, Regina's double-crossing, cutting, sewing and stitching until his mind snapped, and then here, trapped in a mansion, resorting to kidnapping, shamefully hiding from his own child. Alice said nothing, merely stroked the scar on his neck. He allowed the tears to fall down her cheeks.

It had been only for years for her, the mysteries of time and space, but what a four years. She'd wandered around, begging and crawling into hovels for a few days before impressing a diner manager with her cooking and "sprightly friendliness" into giving her a waitressing job. Then she'd dumped her tips in tin cans in a cramped studio apartment, unsure why she bothered since she had no social security number, no driver's license, not even a learner's permit. Jefferson interrupted only once to state that even the accursed had been provided the essentials. She told him about Neal and a few other kind, generous tippers, culminating in her being here now with not much more than the clothes on her...she blushed...the clothes flung on the other side of the room.

She asked question after question about Grace and Jefferson did his best to answer them all. She was taking it all rather well, not unleashing a sob until she was all caught up.

"And she's been without me pretty much her entire life," Alice sighed, putting her sweater back on. "You know I never ever would have made you raise her by yourself if..."

"I know." He perked up. "Come pick her up from school with me."

"I don't know. That might be a little overwhelming for her." But he could see the desire in her.

"She'll want to see you. I wasn't sure she would want to see me, and, Alice, she ran to me. Ran to me." In spite of his wife's dilemma, he couldn't stifle a grin from that particular joyous memory. "She'll want to see you. Trust me." He said it straight to her, in the same quiet-but-assertive tone he'd said many facts to her over the years, the latest being a fierce, "By the gods, Alice, I love you" right before his eyes rolled back.

Nodding to herself, Alice tossed back her hair and slipped her arm through his, nudging his shoulder with her head for a moment before they went out the door.

"Not saying it will be easy," he told her, blinking back a few rays of sunlight. "All of us living together again. Might take some adjusting." She kissed him.

"Families figure that sort of thing out all the time," she told him.


End file.
